New Embarrassment for US Defense Secretary Over Boat Attack Scandal
Tehran - BORNA - The Washington Post reported that a missile strike ordered by Hegseth against a vessel from Ecuador, suspected of carrying illicit drugs, destroyed all documents and physical evidence needed to legally pursue and convict the survivors. According to the report, 42-year-old Ecuadorian national Andres Fernando Toala Chila was one of the survivors of the October 16 attack on a semi-submersible craft that the Pentagon claimed was transporting drugs to foreign destinations. The strike also left one other survivor—who was extradited to Colombia—and resulted in two fatalities.
While the U.S. military detained Chila following the attack and subsequently sent him to Ecuador for trial, Washington was unable to provide the Ecuadorian government with any evidence to justify his arrest. Consequently, Ecuador was forced to release Chila because every piece of evidence—including seized drug cargo, GPS records, and mobile phones—was destroyed in the attack and sank to the bottom of the sea.
The Washington Post noted that this failure to secure the conviction of a single trafficker stands in sharp contrast to the 45-year-old Defense Secretary's public rhetoric regarding a "tough-on-drugs" approach. Joaquin Castro, a member of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees, criticized the operation, questioning why suspects were detained only to be released due to a lack of evidence. "If these people were drug traffickers worthy of death, then why did you detain one of them only to let them go free?" Castro told the newspaper.
In a statement to the Washington Post, the Pentagon defended the operation, asserting that their intelligence consistently confirmed that the targeted vessels were carrying drugs destined for the U.S. and that those involved were "narco-terrorists."
This incident is the latest in a series of scandals involving Pete Hegseth’s directives in waters near Venezuela. He previously faced accusations of war crimes following a September 2 incident where he allegedly ordered the killing of survivors from an earlier strike on a Venezuelan boat. Experts on the laws of war have described that action as a potential war crime. In response to that controversy, 79-year-old President Donald Trump distanced himself from the decision, stating he had no knowledge of the second strike and was not involved in the matter.
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