Families Seek Legal Declarations of Death After US Strike

The families of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo are asking the High Court of Trinidad and Tobago to declare both men legally dead, a day after Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar asserted there was no evidence of Trinidadians being killed during a US military kinetic boat strike. Joseph's mother, Lenore Burnley, and Samaroo's sister, Sallycar Korasingh, will appear before the High Court next week seeking an order declaring the men deceased.

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All our investigations, our local law enforcement, everything, nothing has given us any evidence of the alleged murders as you are calling them. We have been able to find nothing within our own investigative due diligence that they are T&T...

The families believe Joseph and Samaroo lost their lives as a result of the October 14, 2025, strike in Caribbean waters, which US officials stated killed six individuals. The families have filed Freedom of Information Requests seeking information on investigations into the men's disappearances following the strike. They applied to the High Court for orders declaring the men deceased in February, with hearings scheduled through May and eventually transferred to a different judge.

The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service and Coast Guard have been summoned to appear in court to provide updates on the missing persons reports. If the High Court grants the application, Burnley and Korasingh will be issued limited grants of administration to represent their estates. The amended complaint was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights as part of a lawsuit titled Burnley v United States.

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all life lost is one too many

Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar, who previously welcomed US boat strikes that killed over 200, softened her tone at a Caricom meeting, stating “all life lost is one too many.” She had previously called for drug traffickers to be killed "violently" after the first US strike in the Caribbean Sea killed 11. She has maintained that Trinidad and Tobago sought a legal opinion on the strikes, that none occurred within its territory, and denied complicity. Persad-Bissessar stated that local investigations have found no evidence of alleged murders of Trinidadians in the strike.

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It is your bosses’ view, whoever sent you, that they are murders. We were ver