"Alejandro Was Murdered": Colombian Fisherman's Family Files Claim Against U.S. over Boat Strike

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The U.S. military said Thursday that it blew up another boat of suspected drug smugglers, this time killing four people in the eastern Pacific. The U.S. has now killed at least 87 people in 22 strikes since September. The U.S. has not provided proof as to the vessels' activities or the identities of those on board who were targeted, but now the family of a fisherman from Colombia has filed the first legal challenge to the military strikes. In a petition filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the family says a strike on September 15 killed 42-year-old Alejandro Andres Carranza Medina, a fisherman from Santa Marta and father of four. His family says he was fishing for tuna and marlin off Colombia's Caribbean coast when his boat was bombed, and was not smuggling drugs.

"Alejandro was murdered," says international human rights attorney Dan Kovalik, who filed the legal petition on behalf of the family. "This is not how a civilized nation should act, just murdering people on the high seas without proof, without trial."

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