An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Civ­il rights at­tor­neys have filed a fed­er­al law­suit against the US gov­ern­ment on be­half of the fam­i­lies of two Trinida­di­an men who were killed when their fish­ing pirogue was blown up dur­ing one of the ear­ly mil­i­tary airstrikes off the coast of Venezuela last year.

The law­suit, filed by the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU) last Fri­day, is seek­ing re­dress for the fam­i­lies of Chad Joseph and Rishi Sama­roo, who were killed on Oc­to­ber 14, 2025, as they were re­turn­ing home from Venezuela.

The 26-year-old Joseph and the 41-year-old Sama­roo—both of whom were from Las Cuevas—were re­port­ed­ly re­turn­ing af­ter work­ing on a farm and fish­ing over the course of eight months.

They, along with four oth­er peo­ple, whose iden­ti­ties have re­mained un­known to date, were killed when US forces launched a mis­sile which dec­i­mat­ed their boat.

The strike was the fifth such at­tack by the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion in its al­leged war on nar­co-traf­fick­ers op­er­at­ing in the Caribbean Sea.

Se­nior staff at­tor­ney at ACLU’s Cen­tre for Democ­ra­cy, Brett Max Kauf­man, claimed the deaths of over 130 peo­ple in 36 airstrikes were il­le­gal killings.

“These are to­tal­ly un­jus­ti­fi­able killings by an ad­min­is­tra­tion that has claimed the right to abuse ex­ec­u­tive pow­ers with im­puni­ty.”

Dur­ing a vir­tu­al news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, which in­clud­ed lo­cal jour­nal­ists, Kauf­man said, “This law­suit is a de­mand for ac­count­abil­i­ty and in de­fence of the rule of law.”

The law­suit, filed in the Mass­a­chu­setts Fed­er­al Dis­trict Court un­der Ad­mi­ral­ty Law, which ad­dress­es mar­itime dis­putes and vi­o­la­tions, was brought by Joseph’s moth­er, Lenore Burn­ley, and Sama­roo’s sis­ter, Sal­ly­car Ko­ras­ingh.

It al­so cites the Alien Torts Act, which al­lows for­eign na­tion­als to sue in US courts in cer­tain cas­es, as well as the Death on the High Seas Act.

Le­gal lu­mi­nar­ies have de­scribed the strikes against civil­ians in boats far from the US as vi­o­la­tions of do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al law.

The law­suit stat­ed, “These pre­med­i­tat­ed and in­ten­tion­al killings lack any plau­si­ble le­gal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. Thus, they were sim­ply mur­der, or­dered at the high­est lev­els of Gov­ern­ment and obeyed by mil­i­tary of­fi­cers in the chain of com­mand.”

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has main­tained that the strikes were le­gal as the US was in an armed con­flict with drug car­tels and the laws of war ap­ply to the strikes.

At­tor­neys from Se­ton Hall Uni­ver­si­ty, as well as the Cen­tre for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Rights, are al­so ap­pear­ing along­side ACLU in the first fed­er­al law­suit filed in con­nec­tion with the at­tacks.

Steven Watt, se­nior staff at­tor­ney in the ACLU Hu­man Rights Pro­gramme, ac­knowl­edged the brav­ery of the two vic­tims’ fam­i­lies in stand­ing up for jus­tice.

He said the in­ci­dent had left the men’s fam­i­lies trau­ma­tised and scared to ven­ture out to sea for fear that they too could be­come vic­tims of such a strike.

Pro­fes­sor of Law at Se­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, Jonathan Hafetz, said, “Ex­tra-ju­di­cial killing, that’s killing with­out le­gal process, is a core vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law and is recog­nised in US statutes.”

De­tails re­lat­ing to the at­tack re­main un­known ex­cept for the video that was post­ed by US Pres­i­dent Trump, which showed a small open boat float­ing in the wa­ter but not mov­ing, when it was sud­den­ly en­gulfed in flames.

He lat­er wrote on so­cial me­dia: “Un­der my stand­ing au­thor­i­ties as Com­man­der-in-Chief, this morn­ing, the Sec­re­tary of War, or­dered a lethal ki­net­ic strike on a ves­sel af­fil­i­at­ed with a Des­ig­nat­ed Ter­ror­ist Or­gan­i­sa­tion (DTO).”

Lo­cal at­tor­ney Keron Ramkhal­whan, who is stand­ing in de­fence of both vic­tims, said, “The fam­i­lies look for­ward to the de­ci­sion of the Court in the US.

“The ACLU’s fil­ing echoes what many le­gal schol­ars world­wide have ar­gued about strikes in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters. Rather than the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al hid­ing be­hind vague ad­vice from ‘Casper,’ he should state plain­ly that he be­lieves the strikes were law­ful—and tell the pub­lic ex­act­ly who ‘Casper the Friend­ly Ghost’ is sup­posed to be.”