Jan. 27 (UPI) — The families of two Trinidadian men killed in a U.S. boat strike in the Caribbean sued the United States Tuesday for their wrongful deaths and extrajudicial killings.
Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, both of Las Cuevas, Trinidad and Tobago, were believed to have been on a boat that was attacked by the United States on Oct. 14. The two men haven’t been heard from since. Four other men were killed on the boat, which was traveling from Venezuela to Trinidad.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narco-terrorist networks and was transiting along a known [designated terrorist organization] route,” President Donald Trump said Oct. 14 in a Truth Social post.
Lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights, including Baher Azmy, the organization’s legal director and a law professor at Seton Hall University, represent the plaintiffs.
“It is absurd and dangerous for any state to just unilaterally proclaim that a ‘war’ exists in order to deploy lethal military force,” Azmy said in a statement. “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. This is a critical step in ensuring accountability, while the individuals responsible may ultimately be answerable criminally for murder and war crimes.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has come under fire for the attacks and in particular one on Sept. 2 in which survivors were killed after the first strike. But Hegseth refused to release the video, and Congress dropped the matter.
The Defense Department’s Law of War Manual says to target combatants who are injured or disabled and don’t pose a threat violates international laws of armed conflict.
The Trump administration has defended the boat strikes saying they keep illegal drugs out of the United States.
The plaintiffs in the suit are Joseph’s mother, Lenore Burnley, and Samaroo’s sister, Sallycar Korasingh.
Samaroo and Joseph worked on the same farm in Venezuela and fished together. On Oct. 12, Samaroo called his sister and told her he was about to catch a ride on a boat back to Las Cuevas because his mother was ill and he wanted to help care for her. He sent his sister an image of himself wearing a life jacket. It was the last anyone heard from him.
“Rishi used to call our family almost every day, and then one day he disappeared, and we never heard from him again. Rishi was a hardworking man who paid his debt to society and was just trying to get back on his feet again and to make a decent living in Venezuela to help provide for his family,” Korasingh said.
Samaroo had spent 15 years in prison for his participation in a murder. He was released in 2024.
“If the U.S. government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him,” Korasingh said in a statement. “They must be held accountable.”
Joseph often traveled between Venezuela and Las Cuevas for farm work and fishing. He made calls to his wife and mother regularly.
“As reports of the U.S. military’s strikes against boats in the Caribbean Sea dominated the news in the region, Mr. Joseph became increasingly fearful of making the return trip. But he was determined to return to his wife and their children as soon as possible,” the complaint said.
He called his wife on Oct. 12 to tell her he found a boat ride home. It was the last anyone heard from him.
“I miss him terribly. We all do. We know this lawsuit won’t bring Chad back to us, but we’re trusting God to carry us through this, and we hope that speaking out will help get us some truth and closure,” Burnley said in a statement.
The American Civil Liberties Union is also participating in the lawsuit.
“The Trump administration’s boat strikes are the heinous acts of people who claim they can abuse their power with impunity around the world,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior counsel at the ACLU, in a statement. “In seeking justice for the senseless killing of their loved ones, our clients are bravely demanding accountability for their devastating losses and standing up against the administration’s assault on the rule of law.”
The claims are under two federal laws, a press release from the CCR said. The laws are: the Death on the High Seas Act, a law that allows family members to sue for wrongful deaths occurring on the high seas; and the Alien Tort Statute, which allows foreign citizens to sue in U.S. federal courts for violations of well-recognized human rights norms.
Because non-citizens can bring admiralty claims in any federal court, the suit was filed in Massachusetts, where the federal bench has a history of deciding admiralty cases, the release said.