Family members of ‍two men killed in a US missile strike against a suspected drug boat near Venezuela filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Tuesday, alleging the pair were ⁠murdered in a "manifestly unlawful" military campaign targeting civilian vessels.

Civil rights lawyers filed the lawsuit in Boston's federal court, marking the first court challenge to one of the 36 US missile strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean authorised by President Donald Trump's administration that have killed more than 120 people since September.

Family members of Chad ‍Joseph and Rishi Samaroo – two Trinidadian men who were among six killed during an October 14 strike – in the lawsuit say the two men did fishing and farm work in Venezuela and had been returning to their homes in Las Cuevas, Trinidad when they were attacked.

Families of two killed in US strikes near Venezuela file suit against Trump administration

Baher Azmy, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the novel lawsuit under the Death on the High Seas Act, a maritime law that allows family members to sue for wrongful deaths occurring on the high seas, and the Alien Tort Statute, a ‍1789 law that allows foreign citizens to sue in US courts for violations of international law.

22 minutes ago, bannork said:

Family members of ‍two men killed in a US missile strike against a suspected drug boat near Venezuela filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Tuesday, alleging the pair were ⁠murdered in a "manifestly unlawful" military campaign targeting civilian vessels.

Civil rights lawyers filed the lawsuit in Boston's federal court, marking the first court challenge to one of the 36 US missile strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean authorised by President Donald Trump's administration that have killed more than 120 people since September.

Family members of Chad ‍Joseph and Rishi Samaroo – two Trinidadian men who were among six killed during an October 14 strike – in the lawsuit say the two men did fishing and farm work in Venezuela and had been returning to their homes in Las Cuevas, Trinidad when they were attacked.

Families of two killed in US strikes near Venezuela file suit against Trump administration

Baher Azmy, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the novel lawsuit under the Death on the High Seas Act, a maritime law that allows family members to sue for wrongful deaths occurring on the high seas, and the Alien Tort Statute, a ‍1789 law that allows foreign citizens to sue in US courts for violations of international law.

Great for publicity, but a loser.

4 hours ago, bannork said:

Death on the High Seas Act,

Wrongful Death

(Death on the High Seas Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30301 etseq.)

Extrajudicial Killings

(Tort Claim Under Jurisdiction of the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350)

BTW the case is assigned to The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, a federal trial court with jurisdiction over maritime and admiralty cases,

In the above Court, EVERY active judge is listed as a Democrat appointment.