public statements<\/a> denouncing the bombings as extrajudicial killings.<\/p>\n\u201cUS government officials have committed murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,\u201d Petro wrote on October 18.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fisherman, Alejandro Carranza, had no ties to drug trafficking; his daily activity was fishing. The Colombian boat was adrift and had its engine out of service. We await an explanation from the US government.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family\u2019s complaint comes at a time of heightened scrutiny for the Trump administration and Hegseth in particular.<\/p>\n
Rights groups have said the strikes are likely illegal under both domestic and international law, which largely bars attacks on civilians.<\/p>\n
Drug trafficking is not considered an act of combat under international law, so self-defence statutes do not apply.<\/p>\n
Scrutiny has been heightened in recent days after US media reported on a so-called double-tap strike during the first known bombing on September 2. According to reports, the US military\u2019s initial strike appeared to leave two passengers alive, so a second missile was dropped on the boat.<\/p>\n
Legal experts have said firing on unarmed adversaries would likely constitute a war crime. The laws of armed conflict also prohibit firing \u201cupon the shipwrecked\u201d, according to the Pentagon\u2019s own manual.<\/p>\n
Trump and Hegseth have since distanced themselves from the attack, saying Navy Vice Admiral Frank \u201cMitch\u201d Bradley ordered the follow-up strike. The White House has maintained the order was given \u201cwithin his authority and the law\u201d.<\/p>\n
The administration has also said the strikes will continue. It has justified the attacks as necessary to deter so-called \u201cnarco-terrorists\u201d from smuggling drugs to the US.<\/p>\n
Petro, the Colombian president, has been a leading critic of the strikes and pledged to support Carranza\u2019s family as it seeks justice.<\/p>\n
In an interview with the AFP in October, Carranza\u2019s widow, Katerine Hernandez, described her husband as a \u201cgood man\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had no ties to drug trafficking, and his daily activity was fishing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The complaint comes as the US surges military assets to the Caribbean and Trump threatens possible land strikes on Venezuela.<\/p>\n
Venezuela leader Nicolas Maduro has said Trump is using the pretext of drug trafficking to seek regime change in Caracas.<\/p>\n
The IACHR, a panel within the Organization of the American States (OAS), regularly reviews human rights complaints and recommends cases to be taken up by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The family of a Colombian man killed in a United States military strike on an alleged drug smuggling vessel in the Caribbean Sea has filed a complaint with an intergovernmental agency charged with monitoring human rights. The complaint, reported by the AFP news agency on Wednesday, was submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}