Trump administration sued over two deaths in boat strike off Venezuela’s coast
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A banner hanging outside the family home of Chad Joseph, a victim of US missile strikes on vessels off Venezuela.
PHOTO: REUTERS
- Families of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, killed in a US missile strike, filed a lawsuit alleging "lawless killings" of civilians, claiming wrongful death.
- The lawsuit, filed under maritime and international laws, seeks damages from the US government, challenging the legality of the October 14 strike.
- The Trump administration defends the strikes as a war against drug cartels, but critics argue they violate international law and lack congressional authorisation.
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BOSTON - Family members of two men killed in a US missile strike
Civil rights lawyers filed the lawsuit in Boston’s federal court, marking the first court challenge to one of the 36 US missile strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean
Family members of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo - two Trinidadian men who were among six killed during an Oct 14 strike - in the lawsuit say the two men did fishing and farm work in Venezuela and had been returning to their homes in Las Cuevas, Trinidad when they were attacked.
“These are lawless killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for theatre, which is why we need a court of law to proclaim what is true and constrain what is lawless,” Mr Baher Azmy, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the Centre for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement.
His group and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the novel lawsuit under the Death on the High Seas Act, a maritime law that allows family members to sue for wrongful deaths occurring on the high seas, and the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 law that allows foreign citizens to sue in US courts for violations of international law.
The lawsuit was filed by Ms Lenore Burnley, Joseph’s mother, and Ms Sallycar Korasingh, Samaroo’s sister, and seeks only damages from the US government for the two deaths, not an injunction that would prevent further strikes.
But the case could provide an avenue for a court to assess whether the Oct 14 strike was legal.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration has framed the attacks carried out under US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s direction as a war with drug cartels, alleging they were armed groups. It has said its attacks comply with international rules known as the law of war or the law of armed conflict.
But the attacks have drawn scrutiny from Democrats and some Republicans in Congress, which has not authorised attacks on the drug cartels, and condemnation from human rights groups. Legal experts have previously said the drug cartels do not fit the accepted international definition of an armed group.
The Jan 27 lawsuit argues that the killing of Joseph and Samaroo outside of an armed conflict, while they were not taking part in military hostilities against the US amounted to murder and should be deemed a wrongful death on the high seas and an extrajudicial killing under international law.
“If the US government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him,” Ms Korasingh said in a statement.
“They must be held accountable.” REUTERS
