US EditionFirst wrongful death lawsuit filed against Trump administration over drug boat strikes
The lawsuit challenges a 2025 strike killing two civilians, part of 36 U.S. military attacks that killed at least 116 people in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, lawyers said.
- On Jan. 27, 2026, the families of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo filed a wrongful-death suit in Massachusetts over the October 14 missile strike that killed six, including the two Trinidadian men.
- The Oct. 14 strike targeted a boat traveling from Venezuela to Trinidad and killed all six aboard, with the Trump administration framing it as part of a campaign since early September that hit three dozen boats and killed at least 125 people.
- The lawsuit contends the killings occurred outside armed conflict and invokes the Death on the High Seas Act and Alien Tort Statute, noting the Trinidadian government had no information linking the victims to illegal activities.
- The case could give courts a first look at the strikes' legal justification, as the lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union seeks only damages and the U.S. Defense Department declined to comment.
- Family members urged accountability; Baher Azmy called the killings `lawless,' and Sallycar Korasingh said, `If the U.S. government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him.
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Trump administration sued over U.S. boat strike involving Trinidadian nationals
Family members of two Trinidadian men killed in a U.S. strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Tuesday, accusing it of wrongful death and extrajudicial killings.
Two Families in Trinidad and Tobago Sue the United States for Family Deaths in Narco-Lanches Attacks
Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo died in the bombing of the boat in which they returned to their homes from Venezuela
Family of Men Killed in Venezuelan Boat Strikes Sue Trump Admin for Damages
‘The Line Remains Dead to This Day’ The mother and sister of two Trinidadian citizens who the Trump administration killed in a mid-October boat strike have sued the government in federal court, seeking “pecuniary, compensatory, and punitive damages.”
Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, died in an attack by the U.S., allegedly against drug traffickers
Trump administration sued over 2 deaths in Venezuela boat strike | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
BOSTON >> Family members of two men killed in a U.S. missile strike against a suspected drug boat that was traveling from Venezuela filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Tuesday, alleging the pair were murdered in a “manifestly unlawful” military campaign targeting civilian vessels.
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