The U.S. Navy reportedly rescued and is now detaining two survivors of a Trump administration strike that occurred yesterday against alleged drug runners in the Caribbean.
A Navy search and rescue team was deployed following a strike Thursday on a semi-submersible vehicle which killed two people and left two survivors, two U.S. officials told The New York Times. The survivors are now in detention on a Navy ship in the region in international waters, the officials said.
The administration has acknowledged the strike, but has not commented on the alleged presence of survivors.
“We attacked a submarine and that was a drug-carrying submarine built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs,” the president said on Friday. “Just so you understand, this was not an innocent group of people. I don’t know too many people that have submarines.”
The Independent has contacted the Navy for comment.
The Pentagon declined to comment and directed questions to the White House, from which The Independent has also sought comment.
The reported detentions could prompt legal challenges for the U.S., including whether to hold the alleged survivors as indefinite wartime detainees or transfer them to military or criminal authorities for prosecution.
The latter options could open the strikes to legal scrutiny or expose the details that went into planning them, which have largely been kept out of the public eye so far.
“Though in theory there might be a case for military detention, I think in this instance the captives are likely to be turned over to law enforcement and, if the facts support doing so, processed with a view towards trial in civilian court on drug trafficking allegations,” Charles Dunlap, the former deputy judge advocate general of the Air Force, told The Washington Post of the U.S.’s options from here.
“The biggest issue today,” he added, “is the lack of transparency.”
Prior to Thursday’s attack, 27 people have been killed as part of the Trump administration’s recent anti-drug operation in the region, which the White House has controversially declared to be a formal armed conflict against drug cartels.
Details have been scarce about what intelligence the U.S. is using to conduct these strikes, and the names of those killed have not been released.
Chad Joseph, 26, of Trinidad and Tobago, may have been one of six people killed in a similar strike earlier this week, according to his family.
Joseph, a fisherman from the village of Las Cuevas, had been living in Venezuela in recent months. His family said he frequently made trips across the Caribbean in his work as a fisherman.
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