Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
The families of two Trinidadian men killed in a US attack on a suspected drug smuggling ship have filed a lawsuit against the US government.
Attorneys filed the lawsuit in federal court in Boston on behalf of relatives of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo. On October 14, six men were killed off the coast of Venezuela.
One of the lawyers said in a statement that the strike amounted to “cold-blooded lawless killing; killing for sport, killing for drama”.
Since September, the United States has attacked at least 36 ships in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing more than 120 people. The Trump administration says it is targeting “narco-terrorists” who carry drugs that kill Americans.
The United States has framed its operations as a non-international armed conflict with alleged traffickers, but legal experts say they may have violated laws governing such conflicts.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday under the Death on the High Seas Act, which allows family members to sue for wrongful death on the high seas and a statute that allows foreign citizens to sue U.S. courts for violations of international law.
The case was brought by Joseph’s mother and Samaru’s sister, who said the two men were engaged in fishing and farming in Venezuela and were returning to Trinidad and Tobago when their boat was hit.
Joseph’s mother, Sarika Kolasinghe, added that if the U.S. government believed her son had done something wrong, “he should be arrested, charged and detained, not murdered.”
The lawsuit claims the killings should be considered wrongful deaths because the men were not participating in military hostilities against the United States.
The Pentagon has not yet responded to a request for comment.
The case comes after the family of a Colombian man killed in another attack in the United States filed a case with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
