The USS Gravely warship on Oct. 26, 2025, off the coast of Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Photo: Martin Bernetti / AFP via Getty Images

“These premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification,” the complaint said. “Thus, they were simply murders, ordered by individuals at the highest levels of government and obeyed by military officers in the chain of command.”

Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, are believed to have been killed in an Oct. 14 strike, according to the lawsuit, which explained that the families have not heard from either of the men since Oct. 12, before both were expected to take a boat home to Trinidad and Tobago. Both men had been working as fishermen and farmers in Venezuela and were on their way back to Trinidad when their boat was blown up, the families maintain.

A lawyer for the families said their goal was to have the boat strikes declared illegal and halted by a federal judge. The military campaign known as Operation Southern Spear, which began in September, was targeted at Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s then-president, who was later captured in a U.S. military operation on Jan. 2. The strikes have killed 126 people in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, according to the Pentagon.

“This is yet again another lawless claim by the Trump administration under a wartime framework, which is very dangerous,” said the Center for Constitutional Rights’ Baher Azmy, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs. “States can’t just proclaim they’re at war with someone they dislike and kill them.”

Azmy said that the lawyers are seeking money for the families but that “we also need a court of law to constrain what’s been lawless.” They are seeking an unspecified amount of money in punitive and compensatory damages to be determined at trial, the lawsuit said.

President Donald Trump said the attack killed “six male narcoterrorists” aboard a vessel in the Caribbean. Their families dispute the allegation, saying the men were in no way affiliated with drug cartels.

In their suit, they called the U.S. government’s claims “dubious, if not fabricated” and noted that the government of Trinidad and Tobago has “no information linking Joseph or Samaroo to illegal activities.”

The lawsuit, led by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union, details why the boat strike was “manifestly unlawful” and calls out Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth by name for their actions, including “boasting about and celebrating their own role in killing defenseless people.”

In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, the plaintiffs cite two federal statutes — the Death on the High Seas Act and the Alien Tort Statute — as legal grounds for the families to sue for wrongful deaths in international waters and violations of international human rights law. “These wanton, willful, and outrageous killings also constitute torts under general admiralty and maritime law,” the filing said.

The Trump administration insists its actions have been illegal.

“The October 14th strike was conducted against designated narcoterrorists bringing deadly poison to our shores,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Tuesday in a statement to MS NOW. “President Trump used his lawful authority to take decisive action against the scourge of illicit narcotics that has resulted in the needless deaths of innocent Americans.”

Joseph “became increasingly fearful of making the return trip” to the village of Las Cuevas amid news reports of military strikes in the Caribbean Sea, but wanted to get back to his family, the lawsuit said. He called his wife on Oct. 12 to tell her he had found a boat home — the last time she, or anyone in his family, heard from him.

“Chad was a loving and caring son who was always there for me, for his wife and children, and for our whole family. I miss him terribly. We all do,” Joseph’s mother, Lenore Burnley, said in a statement through the ACLU. “We know this lawsuit won’t bring Chad back to us, but we’re trusting God to carry us through this, and we hope that speaking out will help get us some truth and closure.”

“They’re not supposed to kill human beings like that,” Burnley told MS NOW in a telephone interview in November. “I don’t know what to do.”

Samaroo was imprisoned for 15 years “for his participation in a homicide” before moving to Las Cuevas in 2024 to find work and financially support his family, the filing says. Samaroo called his sister in August 2025 to tell her he had found work in Venezuela on a farm, where he “cared for cows and goats and made cheese” and shared videos of his work with his family, even briefly introducing them to his friend Joseph over video chat.

After his mother fell ill, Samaroo told his sister on Oct. 12 he would “catch a ride” on a boat home and sent her a photograph of him wearing a life jacket. She never heard from him again.

Samaroo’s sister, Sallycar Korasingh, said in a statement through the ACLU that her brother was a “hardworking man who paid his debt to society and was just trying to get back on his feet again.”

“If the U.S. government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged and detained him, not murdered him. They must be held accountable,” Korasingh said.

A Pentagon official said that as a matter of policy, the Department of Defense does not comment on ongoing litigation. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

While a human rights lawsuit and a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit have been filed, this is the first wrongful death lawsuit related to the Trump administration’s boat strike campaign — which could have an impact far beyond the two victims’ families.

“The term ‘wrongful death’ allows us to litigate and have a court ruling about the legality because ‘wrongful’ is synonymous with ‘illegal,’” Azmy told MS NOW. “If we prove that it’s unlawful … we would get a court to say these strikes are illegal, and that would result in compensation for our clients, but would also declare what the law is on this point.”