Trump says two drug-vessel survivors can be despatched to dwelling nations : NPR

WASHINGTON — The 2 survivors of an American army strike on a suspected drug-carrying vessel within the Caribbean can be despatched to Ecuador and Colombia, their dwelling nations, President Donald Trump stated Saturday.

The army rescued the pair after placing a submersible vessel Thursday, in what was at the least the sixth such assault since early September.

“It was my nice honor to destroy a really massive DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating in direction of the US on a well-known narcotrafficking transit route,” Trump stated in a social media publish. “U.S. Intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up with principally Fentanyl, and different unlawful narcotics.”

The Republican president stated two folks onboard have been killed — yet one more than was beforehand reported — and the 2 who survived are being despatched to their dwelling nations “for detention and prosecution.”

The repatriation avoids questions for the Trump administration about what the authorized standing of the 2 would have been within the U.S. justice system.

With Trump’s affirmation on his Reality Social platform of the demise toll, which means U.S. army motion in opposition to vessels within the area have killed at the least 29 folks.

The president has justified the strikes by asserting that the US is engaged in an “armed battle” with drug cartels. He’s counting on the identical authorized authority utilized by the George W. Bush administration when it declared a warfare on terrorism after the Sept. 11 assaults and is treating the suspected traffickers as in the event that they have been enemy troopers in a standard warfare.