–journalist flees country after assassination threat

A MONTH ago, armed criminals in Trinidad and Tobago assassinated an outstanding high profile senior counsel of the country’s criminal justice  system—Dana Seetahal—as she was driving to her home.

Then, this past week, an investigative journalist, Mark  Bassant, covering crime and security, felt compelled to hurriedly flee his homeland in order to escape threatened execution by a criminal network.
Now, more than a week since the news of a shocking plot to kill Bassant, a journalist of the Port-of-Spain-based  ‘Caribbean Communications Network (CCN)—the hierarchy of the T&T Police Service are facing strident criticisms for seemingly rationalising the circumstances  that could have triggered the death threat from the criminal underworld.
In T&T where,  by last week, gun-related murders had already skyrocketed to 181,and climbing–already 30 beyond the toll for 2013 at the time of writing–there is a growing fear of citizens becoming numb to the epidemic of criminal violence and execution-style  murder, amid continuing low success rating  by the police in capturing suspected killers.
Over the years as a journalist of the Caribbean Region, I have been both a witness to and victim of the politics of a few government leaders and cabinet ministers that had resulted in my geographical dislocations, and worse, loss of earnings as I coped with survival challenges.
Thankfully, however, I never genuflected to the ‘powers’ that be, nor compromised the fundamental tenets of the profession I continue to share with national and regional journalists—among them some of the best, in competence and integrity—in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica and elsewhere.
Shocking precedent
But never have I had to read the shocking accounts of a professional journalist of the Caribbean Community who felt compelled to speedily abandon his job and flee for his life, after learning he had been targeted for murder by elements of his country’s criminal underworld.
What is worse, in fact scandalous and terrifying, was the information received that a few members of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, with whom the investigative journalist of the CCN has been accustomed to cooperating–on the assumption of shared commitment to fighting crime—were to discover a dimension of treachery that sent him fleeing from his job and country.
I cannot recall ever meeting Mr Bassant, either in T&T or elsewhere. Nevertheless, I fully share the outrage of all journalists, media enterprises and organizations that have been  denouncing and lamenting the shocking claims of collusion and conspiracy against a journalist who had trusted  his police connections. After all, they were claimed ‘partners’ with him in combating criminality, including gang-related murders. Other journalists must pay heed.
Based on the coverage in the T&T media, print and electronic, and in particular reports and commentaries in the Express newspaper—which is a central segment of  the CCN group–acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams may well have done himself an injustice by his  own convoluted  response to what Bassant had reported prior to going into hiding.
In particular, given the gravity of the implications of Bassant’s identification of the cops with whom he said he was working, was it  then really necessary for Commissioner Williams to go public with a response that conveyed the impression more of bias against the CCN journalist  in focusing on what he said were previous errors in his reporting, rather than signal commitment to bringing the criminals to justice?
Top cop’s response
Significantly absent from the Commissioner’s public response was any reference, (names not expected), to what relevant actions were being pursued pertaining to Mr Bassant’s claims of alleged complicity  by cops named in his submitted report.
While understandably anxious to protect the Police Force he still heads, amid mounting criticisms and disenchantment over lack of successes, or breakthroughs, in cases of murder and  assassination hits, Commissioner Williams may well have inflamed passions beyond the corridors of the  CCN enterprise that the Express so passionately reflected in an Editorial of May 26.
Indeed, the Express went as far as to declare that the acting top cop was “unfit for the office of Police Commissioner”. In so doing, it fortified an earlier call by a well known respected senior counsel and columnist, Martin Daly, who had earlier declared that in his own independent assessment, Mr Williams “is not the right man for the job of Police Commissioner”.
Whatever the future of Mr Stephen Williams with the T&T Police Force, the immediate challenge remains to bring to justice those who have been identified—cops and criminals—by the journalist Mark Bassant when he felt compelled to go public with his horrifying  disclosure of  a claimed criminal complicity to explain his hurried flight into physical safety.
This is the unprecedented development in the local media world of Trinidad and Tobago—less than a month after the despicable assassination of senior counsel Dana Seetahal.
Regional and international media enterprises and organizations have been expressing their deep concerns over the implications for press freedom and freedom of expression in the case involving the journalist Bassant and reported collusion of cops and criminals that sent him fleeing for refuge. More than the people of Trinidad and Tobago would be anxiously awaiting positive results.

(Analysis by By  RICKEY SINGH)