The household of a Colombian man who was killed in a U.S. army strike on a ship within the Caribbean has lodged a grievance towards the USA with the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights (IACHR).
The household of 42-year-old Alejandro Carranza Medina, who was killed on Sept. 15, rejected assertions there have been any medicine on the vessel focused in Washington’s anti-narcotics army marketing campaign, and insisted he was a fisherman simply doing his job on the open sea.
“We all know that Pete Hegseth, US Secretary of Protection, was answerable for ordering the bombing of boats like these of Alejandro Carranza Medina and the homicide of all these on such boats,” reads the grievance seen by AFP on Wednesday.
U.S. strikes within the Caribbean and the japanese Pacific have killed greater than 80 individuals on boats that Washington claims, with out offering proof, had been ferrying medicine from Venezuela. Authorized specialists and lawmakers essential of the strikes have argued that the army motion concentrating on the suspected drug smuggling boats are legally doubtful.
Members of the family and victims’ governments insist a few of these killed had been fishermen, and rights teams say the strikes are unlawful even when the targets had been actually drug traffickers.
The IACHR grievance mentioned Hegseth gave the orders “even if he didn’t know the id of these being focused for these bombings and extra-judicial killings” it mentioned had been “ratified” by President Trump.
The IACHR is a quasi-judicial physique of the Group of American States, created to guard human rights within the area.
In a Cupboard assembly on Tuesday, Hegseth mentioned the U.S. has “solely simply begun placing narco-boats and placing narco-terrorists on the backside of the ocean.” He famous a current pause in strikes, explaining that “it is arduous to seek out boats to strike proper now.”
“Deterrence has to matter,” he mentioned. “Not arrest and hand over after which do it once more, the rinse-and-repeat strategy of earlier administrations.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has referred to as the U.S. strikes “extrajudicial executions,” has vowed help for the household in its quest for justice.
“My lawyer Dan Kovalik has begun the authorized protection of the Carranza household, victims of the American assassination of Alejandro Carranza, the fisherman from Santa Marta killed by a missile fired at his boat within the Caribbean and poor in solidarity,” Petro wrote on social media on Monday.
A “good man,” widow says
In an interview with AFP in October, Carranza’s widow Katerine Hernandez, mentioned he had been a “good man.”
He left behind 4 youngsters.
“He had no ties to drug trafficking, and his day by day exercise was fishing,” Hernandez mentioned.
“Why did they only take his life like that?” she requested in the course of the interview. “The fishermen have the proper to dwell. Why did not they only detain them?”
Earlier than his final journey, Carranza advised his father he was heading to a spot “with good fish.”
MARCO PERDOMO/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Days handed with out contact, till the household realized of the bombing on tv.
“The times glided by and he did not name,” Hernandez mentioned.
Pals interviewed by AFP additionally insisted Carranza was a fisherman.
“He went offshore to catch sierra, tuna, and snapper, that are discovered far out right now of 12 months,” mentioned Cesar Henriquez, who has identified him since childhood.
“He at all times got here again to Santa Marta, secured his boat, and went residence. I by no means knew him to do something dangerous,” Henriquez advised AFP.
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