(Trinidad Express) Viewers may have observed the sudden absence of CCN TV6 senior investigative journalist Mark Bassant from television over the past week in a time when he was working on sensitive investigative pieces and news stories which have all peaked national interest. This is because threats were recently made against Bassant’s life by key underworld criminal elements. According to top National Security sources, these elements want the senior journalist dead, as they were of the view several of the pieces Bassant has done recently were “showing them up”.
“On May 7, I got a call from a very reliable underworld source that certain criminal elements wanted to harm me because of stories I wrote recently that were showing them up. “I made a report on it. The next day I was liaising with certain police officers involved in a specific investigation, only to later learn from other trusted sources that these same officers who I had spoken to earlier were leaking information about me and what I knew to the said individuals who organised for my demise.
“I informed a high-ranking intelligence source along with another trusted senior intelligence officer about this development,” Bassant said.
“The senior intelligence office later conferred to me in a face-to-face meeting on May 9 that my name was on a hit list together with other persons. In fact, he told me that they had already been given the order to engage the targets, including me, and that the hit against me was starting at $20,000,” Bassant explained.
