Families of two men who were killed by a U.S. military missile strike on a suspected drug ship that was?traveling from Venezuela have filed a lawsuit for wrongful death. They claim the pair were "murdered" in a "manifestly illegal" military campaign against civilian vessels. Civil rights lawyers filed the suit in Boston's Federal Court, marking the first legal challenge to one the 36 U.S. military strikes authorized by the Trump administration on vessels in Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean that have killed at minimum 125 people since Sept.

In the lawsuit, family members of Chad Joseph (two Trinidadian men) and Rishi Samaroo (two Trinidadians who were among six men killed in an October 14th strike) say that they did farm and fishing work in Venezuela before returning to their Las Cuevas homes when they were attacked.

Brett Max Kaufman is an attorney for the plaintiffs of the American Civil Liberties Union. He said, "These are totally unjustifiable murders committed by a government that claims the right to abuse its executive power without consequence." This lawsuit is an attempt to demand accountability and defend the rule of law. His group and the Center for Constitutional Rights have filed the novel suit?under the Death on the High Seas Act. This maritime law allows family members to bring a lawsuit for wrongful death occurring on the high seas.

Lenore Brennley, Joseph Burnley's mother, Sallycar Korasingh and Samaroo Korasingh's sister filed the lawsuit, which seeks damages only from the U.S. Government for the deaths of the two, but not an injunction to prevent future strikes.

The case may provide a way for a judge to determine whether the strike of October 14 was legal.

In a statement, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly defended the strike by saying that it was "conducted to?designated terrorists who bring deadly poisons to our shores."

Kelly stated that "President Trump used the lawful authority he had to take action against the scourge illicit narcotics which has led to the unnecessary deaths of innocent Americans."

The Trump administration has claimed that the attacks under Pete Hegseth, U.S. Secretary of Defense, were carried out in a war against drug cartels. They claim they are armed groups. The administration has claimed that its attacks are in accordance with international laws known as the Law of War or the Law of Armed Conflict. The attacks have been criticized by human rights groups and Democrats in Congress who did not authorize attacks against the drug cartels. Legal experts previously stated that the drug cartels did not meet the accepted international definition for an armed group. The lawsuit filed on Tuesday argues that killing Joseph, 26, and Samaroo 41, when they weren't involved in military hostilities with the U.S. and were not engaged in an armed conflict, amounted murder. It should also be considered wrongful death at sea and extrajudicial killing according to international law.

Korasingh stated in a press release that "if the U.S. Government believed Rishi had committed any wrongdoing, they should have arrested him, charged him and detained him. Not murdered him." "They must be made accountable."

(source: Reuters)