TRUMP ADMIN REPATRIATES SURVIVORS OF CARIBBEAN DRUG STRIKE INSTEAD OF PROSECUTING
The Trump administration just dodged a legal minefield.
Two survivors of Wednesday’s U.S. military strike on a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean are being sent back to Colombia and Ecuador rather than detained or charged, officials confirmed Saturday:
“The two survivors are being transferred to State Department custody for repatriation to their home countries.”
This is the sixth strike since September.
Trump called the survivors “unlawful combatants” and claimed authority to summarily kill suspected smugglers like enemy combatants—a legal position widely disputed by experts.
Repatriating survivors avoids the thorny question: is drug smuggling really an armed conflict?
Holding them at Guantánamo could have forced courts to answer that.
Source: New York TimesIN REPATRIATES SURVIVORS OF CARIBBEAN DRUG STRIKE INSTEAD OF PROSECUTING
The Trump administration just dodged a legal minefield.
Two survivors of Wednesday’s U.S. military strike on a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean are being sent back to Colombia and Ecuador rather than detained or charged, officials confirmed Saturday:
“The two survivors are being transferred to State Department custody for repatriation to their home countries.”
This is the sixth strike since September.
Trump called the survivors “unlawful combatants” and claimed authority to summarily kill suspected smugglers like enemy combatants—a legal position widely disputed by experts.
Repatriating survivors avoids the thorny question: is drug smuggling really an armed conflict?
Holding them at Guantánamo could have forced courts to answer that.
Source: New York Times