Civil rights attorneys have filed a federal lawsuit against the United States government on behalf of the families of two men killed in a US military airstrike on a small boat in the Caribbean Sea on 14 October. The strike, which killed six people, was part of a campaign announced by former President Donald Trump against small vessels allegedly connected to cartels and gangs.
The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Massachusetts, says Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, both from Las Cuevas, Trinidad, were returning to Trinidad from Venezuela when they and four others died. It argues the killings were illegal, stating: 'These premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification. Thus, they were simply murder, ordered at the highest levels of government.'
This is the first federal lawsuit filed in connection with the boat strikes, of which the White House announced 36 by 18 October. The death toll stands at least 117. Legal scholars have said the strikes violate domestic and international law, but the Trump administration maintained they were legal under a secret Justice Department opinion arguing the US is in an armed conflict with cartels.
The suit was brought by Lenore Burnley, Chad’s mother, and Sallycar Korasingh, Samaroo’s sister, under admiralty law, the Alien Torts Act, and the Death on the High Seas Act. Lawyers from the ACLU, Seton Hall University, and the Center for Constitutional Rights represent the families.
Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall law school said: 'This is uncharted water. Never before in the country’s history has the government asserted this type of power.' In a press release, Korasingh said: 'If the US government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him.'
