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Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday called for a criminal investigation into the three strikes ordered by President Trump on ships allegedly transporting narcotics in the Caribbean.
“Criminal proceedings must be opened against those officials, who are from the U.S., even if it includes the highest-ranking official who gave the order: President Trump,” Petro said during his speech before the U.N. General Assembly.
The Colombian leader said travelers were not members of the Tren De Aragua street gang but “were simply poor young people from Latin America who had no other option,” he added, The Associated Press reported.
Venezuelan authorities also confirmed individuals onboard the vessel struck on Sept. 2 were not drug traffickers after an independent investigation.
Additional hits were carried out on Sept. 15 and Sept. 19, resulting in a total of 22 deaths from the three separate missions.
“On my Orders, the Secretary of War ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post last Friday.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage enroute to poison Americans. The strike killed 3 male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel, which was in international waters,” he added at the time.
Some experts have agreed with Petro and, accusing the Trump administration of violating international law by effectively executing individuals on the boat without due process or any proof of an immediate threat to the country.
“They said that the missiles in the Caribbean were used to stop drug trafficking. That is a lie stated here in this very rostrum,” Petro said Tuesday.
He added, “Was it really necessary to bomb unarmed, poor young people in the Caribbean?”
