Nate Raymond
BOSTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) – The families of two men involved in a U.S. missile attack on a suspected drug trafficking ship off Venezuela filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Tuesday, alleging they were murdered during a “clearly illegal” military operation targeting civilian vessels.
Civil rights lawyers filed the lawsuit in Boston federal court in the first court challenge to one of 36 U.S. missile attacks on ships in the Caribbean and Pacific authorized by President Donald Trump’s administration that have killed more than 120 people.
Trinidadian men Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo were among six people killed in the October 14 strike. The two men were working fishing and farming in Venezuela and were returning home to Las Cuevas, Trinidad, when they were attacked, their families said in the lawsuit.
“These were cold-blooded, lawless killings; killing for sport, killing for drama, which is why we need courts to declare the truth and limit lawless behavior,” Baher Azmi, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement.
His organization and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the novel lawsuit under the Death on the High Seas Act and the Alien Tort Statute. The Death on the High Seas Act is a maritime law that allows family members to bring proceedings for wrongful death that occurs on the high seas. Additionally, the Alien Tort Statute is a 1789 law that allows foreign citizens to sue U.S. courts for violations of international law.
The lawsuit, filed by Joseph’s mother Leno Burnley and Samaru’s sister Sarika Kolasinghe, seeks only damages from the U.S. government for their deaths, not an injunction to prevent further attacks.
But the case could provide a way for courts to assess whether the October 14 strike was legal.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration has characterized the attacks, directed by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as part of a war against drug cartels, claiming they are armed groups. It said its attacks were consistent with international rules known as the laws of war, or the laws of armed conflict.
But the attacks have drawn scrutiny from Democrats and some Republicans in Congress, which has yet to authorize raids on drug cartels, and have been condemned by human rights groups. Legal experts have previously said drug cartels do not meet the internationally recognized definition of an armed group.
Tuesday’s lawsuit alleges that Joseph and Samaru were killed outside of armed conflict and that although they did not take part in military hostilities against the United States, their actions constituted murder and should be considered wrongful death on the high seas and extrajudicial executions under international law.
“If the U.S. government believes Rishi has done anything wrong, he should be arrested, charged and detained, not murdered,” Kolasinghe said in a statement. “They must be held accountable.”
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Aurora Ellis)