The families of two Trinidadian men killed in a US strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat have filed a lawsuit against the American government.
Lawyers filed the claim in Boston's federal court on behalf of relatives of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, among six men killed off the coast of Venezuela on 14 October.
One of the lawyers stated that the strike amounted to lawless killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for theatre.
The US has struck at least 36 vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific since September, killing more than 120 people. The Trump administration claimed it was targeting narco-terrorists transporting drugs that harm Americans.
The US has framed its operations as a non-international armed conflict with alleged traffickers, though legal experts argue they may violate laws governing armed conflict.
This lawsuit was filed under the Death on the High Seas Act, allowing family members to sue for wrongful deaths at sea, a statute that permits foreign citizens to take cases to US courts for violations of international law.
The relatives, including Joseph's mother and Samaroo's sister, contend that the two men were engaged in fishing and agricultural work in Venezuela and were returning to Trinidad and Tobago when their boat was struck.
Joseph's mother, Sallycar Korasingh, expressed her anguish, stating that if the US government believed her son had done something wrong, they should have taken legal action against him rather than resorting to murder.
The lawsuit asserts that the killings should be regarded as wrongful deaths because the men were not engaged in military hostilities against the US.
The Pentagon has not responded to requests for comment.
This case follows a similar instance where the family of a Colombian man killed in a separate US strike sought justice from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
