The family of a Colombian fisherman killed in a U.S. strike in the Caribbean is accusing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of murder, pulling the Trump administration’s “drug boat” campaign into an international human rights showdown.
Alejandro Andres Carranza Medina, a 42 year old fisherman from Colombia, was killed on Sept. 15 when a U.S. military aircraft bombed the small boat he was working on, according to The Guardian. His wife and four children have now filed a formal complaint with the Washington, DC based Inter American Commission on Human Rights, alleging the United States carried out an “extra judicial killing” and violated his most basic rights.
The petition, filed Tuesday, names Hegseth personally. It argues that the defense secretary bears direct responsibility for Carranza’s death as part of the Trump administration’s air campaign against suspected narco boats operating in waters off Colombia and Venezuela.
“From numerous news reports, we know that Pete Hegseth, U.S. Secretary of Defense, was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza Medina and the murder of all those on such boats,” the filing states. “Secretary Hegseth has admitted that he gave such orders despite the fact that he did not know the identity of those being targeted for these bombings and extra judicial killings.”
The complaint also argues that “U.S. President Donald Trump has ratified the conduct of Secretary Hegseth described herein,” directly tying Carranza’s death to the president’s push for kinetic military strikes against alleged trafficking vessels.
Carranza’s family insists he was not a cartel figure but a working fisherman who trolled the Caribbean for marlin and tuna. He had gone out as he always did, they said, expecting to bring home a catch, not die in a missile strike.
Their lawyer, human rights attorney Daniel Kovalik, said Carranza’s killing shattered the family’s life. He told reporters that the strike eliminated their only breadwinner and left them facing intimidation for challenging the U.S. government. “Their world has been turned upside down,” Kovalik said.
Carranza was killed in what Trump celebrated as the second strike in his Caribbean “kinetic” campaign. “This morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Trump posted on Truth Social the day Carranza died.
The president claimed the targeted boat carried Venezuelans. Colombian officials later confirmed the men on board were Colombian citizens, including Carranza.
“We think this is a viable way to challenge the killing of Alejandro,” Kovalik said of the newly filed complaint. “We are going to seek redress for the family. We want the US to be ordered to stop doing these boat attacks. It may be a first step but we think it’s a good first step.” The family is seeking compensation, though the commission cannot enforce its rulings. Kovalik said the family’s priority is preventing future killings. “They also want the killings to stop,” he said. “We hope that this can be at least part of the process of getting that to happen.”
The filing arrives as Hegseth already faces scrutiny for a separate strike earlier in the month, when a second missile was fired at survivors clinging to boat wreckage after a Sept. 2 attack. That “double tap” killed at least two people who had survived the initial blast, raising serious questions about the legality of the order. The Carranza complaint cites reporting on that incident as evidence of a bigger pattern.
