US EditionFirst wrongful death lawsuit filed against Trump administration over drug boat strikes
The lawsuit alleges wrongful deaths of two fishermen in a U.S. military strike off Venezuela, part of 36 attacks killing 116 people since September, challenging legal justifications.
- 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.
192 Articles
192 Articles
These Trinidadian fishermen were killed in a U.S. boat strike. Now their families are suing
The U.S. government has said, without providing evidence, that the men killed on the boats were “narco-terrorists.” But Chad Joseph’s and Rishi Samroo’s families say they were just regular workers catching a ride home to the fishing village of Las Cuevas.
Families of 2 Men Killed in Caribbean Boat Strike File Wrongful Death Suit Against US
Family members of two Trinidadian nationals on Jan. 27 filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the United States over a lethal U.S. strike on a boat operating in the Caribbean Sea in October. U.S. forces destroyed the boat, killing its operators, as part of a campaign of strikes on suspected drug runners that President Donald Trump initiated in September. The families of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo have claimed they were innocent travelers kill…
The Needle: Families Sue Trump Over Boat Murders, Inhumane Conditions at Immigration Holding Center in Baltimore, And Another Kennedy Center Cancellation
Murder, they wrote: Families of two men killed in a U.S. military strike on a small boat in the Caribbean Sea are suing the Trump administration in federal court. Rishi Samaroo, 41, and Chad Joseph, 26, were returning to Trinidad from Venezuela when they and four other people were killed in the fifth attack ordered by convicted felon and President Donald Trump on boats he claims are carrying drugs. The lawsuit says the strikes are illegal, and t…
Relatives of Civilians Killed in US Caribbean Missile Strikes Sue Trump Administration
Relatives of two Trinidadian citizens killed in a US missile strike in the Caribbean have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Trump administration. This litigation, the first of its kind, seeks justice for the brutality of the unauthorized military campaign that, under the pretext of a “war on drugs,” has claimed more than 120 lives in the Pacific and the Caribbean since last September. The lawsuit asserts that Chad Joseph and Rishi Samar…
Families of two murdered Trinidadians sue for illegal killing. The US government considers the attacks to be justified. Legal experts doubt. An analysis.
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