A priest celebrates Mass at St. Michael Roman Catholic Church in Las Cuevas, Trinidad and Tobago, Oct. 22, 2025, as the family of Chad Joseph, who they believe was killed in a U.S. military boat attack in the Caribbean, holds a memorial service.
Andrea De Silva | Reuters
The families of two men killed in a U.S. missile attack on a suspected drug smuggler near Venezuela filed a wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday, saying they were killed in a “clearly illegal” military operation targeting a civilian vessel.
Civil rights lawyers filed the lawsuit in federal court in Boston, marking the first legal challenge to one of 36 U.S. missile attacks on ships in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean authorized by President Donald Trump’s administration that have killed more than 120 people since September.
The families of Trinidadian men Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, two of the six people killed in the October 14 strike, claim in a lawsuit that they were fishing and farming workers in Venezuela and were returning to their home in Las Cuevas, Trinidad, when they were attacked.
“These are cold-blooded lawless killings, murders for sport and murders for theater, which is why we need a court to declare what is true and bind what is lawless,” Baher Azmy, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement.
Lynette Burnley, the aunt of Chad Joseph, who the family believes was killed in a U.S. boat attack in the Caribbean, lights a candle on an altar for Joseph at her family home in Las Cuevas, Trinidad and Tobago, on October 22, 2025.
Andrea De Silva | Reuters
His organization and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a new lawsuit based on the Death on the High Seas Act, a maritime law that allows families to sue for wrongful deaths on the high seas, and the Alien Torts Act, a 1789 law that allows foreigners to sue in U.S. courts for violations of international law.
The lawsuit, filed by Joseph’s mother Lenore Burnley and Samaroo’s sister Salikar Kolasin, seeks only damages from the U.S. government for their deaths, not an injunction to prevent further strikes.
But the case could provide a way for courts to evaluate whether the Oct. 14 strike was legal.
The Department of Defense did not respond to requests for comment.
A banner is hung outside the family home of Chad Joseph, who his family believes was killed in a U.S. boat attack in the Caribbean, in Las Cuevas, Trinidad and Tobago, on October 22, 2025.
Andrea De Silva | Reuters
The Trump administration characterized the attack, carried out under the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as a war on drug cartels, which it claimed were armed groups. The country claimed the attack was in accordance with international rules known as the laws of war or armed conflict.
But the attack has drawn scrutiny from Democrats and some Republicans in Congress, who disapprove of attacks on drug cartels, and condemnation from human rights groups. Legal experts have previously said drug cartels do not fit the internationally accepted definition of an armed group.
Tuesday’s lawsuit argues that even though Joseph and Samaroo did not take part in military hostilities against the United States, their killings outside of an armed conflict constituted murder, wrongful deaths on the high seas, and should be considered extrajudicial killings under international law.
“If the U.S. government believed that Mr. Rishi had done something wrong, it should have arrested, prosecuted, and detained him instead of killing him,” Kolasin said in a statement. “They have to be held accountable.”
