The plaintiffs -- 30 veterans and 134 families of victims who were also forced to serve in Japan's Imperial Army during the war -- are seeking a total of 1.7 billion yen (14 million dollars), said an official at the Tokyo District Court where the cased was lodged, and according to news reports.

They are arguing they were forcibly inducted into Japan's Imperial Army and dispatched to Japanese-held Manchuria during the war. Korea was under Japanese colonial rule at the time.

The Koreans were captured and held in Soviet detention in Siberia after the war ended and were used as forced labourers.

Some of the plaintiffs also sought Japan's apology and a court injunction ordering Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni Shrine to stop honouring the spirits of South Korean soldiers who died during the war.

The spirits of some 2.5 million Japanese war dead are venerated at Yasukuni, widely seen as a symbol of Japan's former militarism, particularly since 1978 when it enshrined 14 Class-A war criminals including wartime prime minister General Hideki Tojo.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to the shrine have provoked protests from Asian neighbours who were victims of Japanese colonial aggression.

A series of lawsuits have been filed by Koreans against the Japanese government, seeking compensation for their suffering during Japan's harsh colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

A group of 31 former Japanese prisoners of war who were taken to Siberia filed a suit seeking 260 million yen in unpaid labor in Siberia, Kyodo News agency said.

But the Supreme Court rejected their demand in 1997, citing a lack of a law providing for such compensation.

WAR.WIRE