JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Rel­a­tives of Chad Joseph, one of two Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als be­lieved to have been killed in US air strikes last year, are again re­ject­ing claims that he was not killed by Amer­i­can bombs.

Speak­ing at a me­dia brief­ing fol­low­ing the 51st Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment in St Lu­cia on Wednes­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there was no ev­i­dence to sup­port claims that na­tion­als of this coun­try were among those killed dur­ing US mar­itime in­ter­dic­tions.

“All our in­ves­ti­ga­tions, our lo­cal law en­force­ment, every­thing, noth­ing has giv­en us any ev­i­dence” that the in­di­vid­u­als said to have been killed were cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, she said.

But Lynette Burn­ley has dis­missed that ar­gu­ment.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at her Las Cuevas home yes­ter­day, Burn­ley said Joseph would nev­er have left his fam­i­ly un­cer­tain about his safe­ty.

“We know he’s dead be­cause where he is? It’s nine months and more go­ing. So, where he is, if he didn’t die, or noth­ing hap­pened to him, he would have con­tact­ed his fam­i­ly al­ready.”

She added: “We’re still griev­ing and we’re still do­ing what we have to do at the end of the day. Be­cause we know he was com­ing on that boat so they can see what they want to say.”

Burn­ley said since Oc­to­ber last year, her sis­ter and Joseph’s moth­er, Lenore, has post­ed pic­tures and videos of him dai­ly. With the an­niver­sary ap­proach­ing, she said rel­a­tives are plan­ning a sec­ond memo­r­i­al.

Joseph and Rishi Sama­roo are be­lieved to have been killed in a US air strike on a sus­pect­ed drug ves­sel on Oc­to­ber 14 last year. Rel­a­tives of Sama­roo, when con­tact­ed about the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments, chose not to com­ment.

One of Joseph’s child­hood friends al­so dis­missed the Prime Min­is­ter’s claims. The 50-year-old, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said he feared be­com­ing a tar­get by law en­force­ment.

“He was dey! Yuh see that woman, I dun­no what to say about that Prime Min­is­ter. She done have the coun­try go­ing hay­wire. Noth­ing ain’t go­ing good in the coun­try, every­body suf­fer­ing. You see is on­ly home in­va­sions and she say rid­dle them. How you go tell peo­ple that as a big Prime Min­is­ter.”

He added: “The man was com­ing home to see about he fam­i­ly. The man didn’t have no drugs. The man leave from here, he was fish­ing; the boat end up drift­ing in Venezuela for days.”

The friend said he had twice dreamed of Joseph re­turn­ing home. In one dream, Joseph ap­peared at his home hav­ing lost weight and look­ing “cut up, cut up”, and thanked God for be­ing alive.

In the sec­ond dream, Joseph ap­peared at the Las Cuevas Fish­ing De­pot.

“He lie down on the ta­ble so (ges­tur­ing with his hands spread open) tired, breath­ing, gasp­ing for breath. I say, ‘boy, every­body say you dead. Thank God you come home.’ But he just get small like he ain’t eat for days.”

Rel­a­tives of both men de­clined to com­ment on the on­go­ing law­suit against the US gov­ern­ment.

The case is be­ing heard in the South­ern Dis­trict of New York by the Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Rights (CCR). The CCR, along with the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU) and the New York Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union (NY­CLU), has sued the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion to com­pel the re­lease of the le­gal ad­vice it re­lied on to jus­ti­fy air strikes against al­leged crim­i­nals des­ig­nat­ed as nar­co-ter­ror­ists.

The in­for­ma­tion is ex­pect­ed to form part of the case against the US gov­ern­ment.

The fam­i­lies filed their law­suit un­der the US Death on the High Seas Act, which al­lows rel­a­tives to sue for deaths oc­cur­ring in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters, and the Alien Tort Statute, which per­mits for­eign na­tion­als to seek re­dress in US courts for se­ri­ous vi­o­la­tions of in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights law.

The court mat­ter is on­go­ing.