Trump admin sued by families of two men killed in ‘drug boat’ strikes off Venezuela coast
Trump admin accused of ‘killings for sport’ in lawsuit over boat strike deaths
- Families of two Trinidadian men, Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, killed in boat strikes have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the US government in Boston.
- The lawsuit alleges the men were murdered in a "manifestly unlawful" US missile strike on a suspected drug boat near Venezuela on Oct. 14.
- "These are lawless killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for theater, which is why we need a court of law to proclaim what is true and constrain what is lawless," Baher Azmy, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement.
- The legal challenge is the first against the 36 US missile strikes on vessels, authorized by the Trump administration, which have killed over 120 people since September.
- Filed under the Death on the High Seas Act and the Alien Tort Statute, the lawsuit seeks damages for the deaths, while the Trump administration argues the attacks comply with international rules known as the law of war or the law of armed conflict.