Family of Colombian man killed in US strike in the Caribbean files human rights challenge

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The family of a Colombian man has filed the first formal challenge to US military strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats, arguing in a petition to the premier human rights watchdog in the Americas that his death was an extrajudicial killing.

The petition from the family of Alejandro Carranza says the military bombed his fishing boat on September 15, when he was sailing off Colombia’s Caribbean coast, in violation of human rights conventions.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights received the complaint Tuesday, and while the Trump administration has said it supports the commission’s work, the US does not recognise the jurisdiction of an international court associated with the commission.

Therefore, any recommendations that could result from the family’s petition would not be binding.

The family’s attorney, Daniel Kovalik, said Carranza’s four children and spouse want to be compensated as their loved one was their primary breadwinner.

He explained that the family chose the commission because of the obstacles that a federal case would face, but the possibility has not been ruled out either.

“The US does not subject itself to accountability, so we’re using the avenues we have before us,” Kovalik said Wednesday.

“We believe that a decision in our favour, combined with public pressure, can get us that compensation and also can end the killings in the Caribbean.”

The US military has killed more than 80 people since early September, when it began striking vessels that the Trump administration has said were carrying drugs toward the US. The strikes began off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast and later expanded to the eastern Pacific Ocean.

The US also has built up its largest military presence in the region in generations, which many see as part of a strategy to pressure Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to resign.

The Trump administration has not provided any details of the people killed in the strikes, but it has insisted that its intelligence confirmed that members of foreign terrorist organizations were operating the targeted vessels.

Follow The Gleaner on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.