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Family members of<\/span> Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41 \u2014 two Trinidadian men killed in a U.S. boat strike on October 14, 2025 \u2014 are suing the U.S. government for wrongful death and extrajudicial killing. Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU of Massachusetts, and Seton Hall Law School professor Jonathan Hafetz called the entire campaign of attacks in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean \u201cunprecedented and manifestly unlawful\u201d in a complaint filed on Tuesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n The suit will be brought in U.S. federal admiralty court under the Death on the High Seas Act, a congressional statute that covers wrongful maritime deaths. The plaintiffs are also bringing claims for extrajudicial killing under the Alien Tort Statute, which gives federal courts jurisdiction over violations of the law of nations, including extrajudicial killing. Another federal statute, the Suits in Admiralty Act, waives U.S. sovereign immunity \u2014 which ordinarily protects the federal government from being sued \u2014 over both claims.<\/p>\n \u201cThese were both homicides. Both men were killed without any due process.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cThis allows the families of victims to bring a claim for wrongful or negligent death committed on the high seas. And in our case, this is murder,\u201d Steven Watt, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program, told The Intercept. \u201cIt was a murder. These were both homicides. Both men were killed without any due process.\u201d<\/p>\n A total of six civilians <\/a>were reportedly killed in the October 14 strike on a boat in the Caribbean. \u201cUnder 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 Organization,\u201d Trump announced<\/a> on Truth Social that same day. \u201cThe strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike.\u201d<\/p>\n The Intercept spoke with Lenore Burnley, Joseph\u2019s mother, shortly after she learned her son had been killed. \u201cI don\u2019t want to believe it. Not my child,\u201d she said. \u201cSomebody called us. They said he was on the boat.\u201d Burnley said she had nothing to say to Trump. \u201cI put it in God\u2019s hands,\u201d she told The Intercept at the time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Joseph and Samaroo were returning from Venezuela to their homes in Las Cuevas, Trinidad, on October 14. Joseph, who had a wife and three children, often traveled to Venezuela to fish and do farmwork. Two days before he was killed, Joseph called his wife to let her know that he had found a boat ride home from Venezuela and would see her soon.<\/p>\n Samaroo was also working on a farm in Venezuela, caring for goats and cows and making cheese. On October 12, he told his sister, Sallycar Korasingh, that he was coming home to take care of his mother, who had fallen ill.<\/p>\n \u201cRishi used to call our family almost every day, and then one day he disappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cRishi used to call our family almost every day, and then one day he disappeared, and we never heard from him again,\u201d said Korasingh. \u201cIf the U.S. government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him. They must be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n Burnley hoped that the lawsuit would offer her family answers. \u201cChad was a loving and caring son who was always there for me, for his wife and children, and for our whole family. I miss him terribly. We all do,\u201d she said. \u201cWe know this lawsuit won\u2019t bring Chad back to us, but we\u2019re trusting God to carry us through this, and we hope that speaking out will help get us some truth and closure.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S. military has carried out 36 known attacks, destroying 37 boats, in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since September,\u00a0killing at least 126 civilians<\/a>. The most recent attack occurred in the Pacific Ocean on January 23, killing two people and leaving one survivor. The Coast Guard was unsuccessful in locating the shipwrecked man and called off the search on January 25. He is now presumed dead.\u00a0<\/p>\n Experts in the laws of war and members of Congress,\u00a0from both parties<\/a>, say the strikes are illegal extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians \u2014 even suspected criminals \u2014 who do not pose an imminent threat of violence. The summary executions are a significant departure from standard practice in the\u00a0long-running U.S. war on drugs<\/a>, in which law enforcement agencies arrested\u00a0suspected drug smugglers<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever that secret memorandum states, it cannot render the patently illegal killings lawful.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The administration insists the attacks are permitted because the U.S. is engaged in \u201cnon-international armed conflict<\/a>\u201d with \u201cdesignated terrorist organizations<\/a>,\u201d or DTOs. The Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel has also produced a classified opinion that provides\u00a0legal cover<\/a>\u00a0for the lethal strikes, with a secret list <\/a>of the DTOs attached. \u201cWhatever that secret memorandum states, it cannot render the patently illegal killings lawful,\u201d reads the complaint, which was shared with The Intercept prior to publication.<\/p>\n \u201cUsing military force to kill Chad and Rishi violates the most elementary principles of international law,\u201d said Hafetz, the Seton Hall Law School professor. \u201cPeople may not simply be gunned down by the government, and the Trump administration\u2019s claims to the contrary risk making America a pariah state.\u201d<\/p>\n The Intercept was the\u00a0first outlet<\/a>\u00a0to report\u00a0that the U.S. military\u00a0killed two survivors\u00a0of the initial boat attack on September 2 in a\u00a0follow-up strike. The two survivors clung\u00a0to the wreckage of a vessel attacked by the U.S. military for\u00a0roughly 45 minutes<\/a>\u00a0before Adm. Frank Bradley, then the head of Joint Special Operations Command,\u00a0ordered a follow-up strike<\/a>\u00a0that killed the shipwrecked men.<\/p>\n U.S. Southern Command has been incapable of keeping an accurate count of the attacks<\/a> on boats and the number of people<\/a> killed in the strikes. The command is also unable to cope<\/a> with civilian harm reports stemming from recent operations, prompting the Pentagon to begin accepting casualty claims directly.<\/p>\n Trinidadian Foreign Minister Sean Sobers told a local news outlet after the October 14 strike that \u201cthe government has no information linking Joseph or Samaroo to illegal activities.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
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