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The families of two men from Trinidad and Tobago filed a lawsuit against the United States Government over the deaths of their relatives during a military attack in the Caribbean, part of Operation Southern Spear, the anti-drug offensive launched by the administration of President Donald Trump.
The plaintiffs, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights, accuse Washington of carrying out “extrajudicial and clearly illegal killings” by attacking a civilian vessel on October 14, 2025 off the coast of Venezuela.
In the attack, Chad Joseph, 26 years old, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, were killed while returning to Trinidad after working in Venezuela.
According to the lawsuit, Joseph and Samaroo were fishermen and agricultural workers with no ties to drug trafficking. Both were seeking a vessel to take them back to their country when their boat was hit by a U.S. missile.
“If the Government of the United States believed that Rishi had done something wrong, they should have arrested him, not killed him. They must be held accountable,” stated the sister of one of the victims, Sallycar Korasingh, in a statement released by the ACLU and cited by the network CNN.
Donald Trump himself announced the attack on his social media on October 14, stating that "six narcoterrorists were eliminated" aboard a vessel "associated with criminal networks."
However, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago has denied having information linking the victims to illegal activities or that the vessel was transporting drugs.
The complaint also cites the Death on the High Seas Act and the Alien Tort Statute, which allow foreign relatives to sue the U.S. government for violations of international law.
The case is considered a legal precedent without prior history, as it is the first time a federal court will have to rule on the legality of American attacks in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, operations that have resulted in at least 117 deaths since they began in September 2025, according to Pentagon data.
Several countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, along with human rights organizations, have called for an independent investigation into the U.S. attacks in the area.
Governments like Colombia argue that some of the destroyed boats belonged to ordinary fishermen and were not carrying drug shipments.
International law experts have warned that the Southern Spear Operation could violate fundamental principles of humanitarian law, as the identities of the individuals aboard the vessels had not been confirmed prior to ordering the attacks.
Meanwhile, Trump has boasted in several messages on Truth Social that his operations in the Caribbean "have eliminated more than 120 narco-terrorists," a figure that contrasts with the statements from Caribbean governments, which claim that several of the victims were fishermen or migrants attempting to return to their countries.
The lawsuit, now in the hands of a federal court in Washington, could compel the White House to reveal for the first time the legal basis of the most controversial military offensive in the hemisphere in recent years.
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