Tobago reporter’s vehicle set ablaze

STEPHON NICHOLAS

GML To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The ve­hi­cle of a To­ba­go re­porter was tar­get­ed in an ap­par­ent ar­son at­tack ear­ly on Fri­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the van of TV6 re­porter Eliz­a­beth Williams was set on fire around 2 am at her home in Low­lands.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Williams said her daugh­ter, who lives with her, no­ticed the blaze and alert­ed her.

The pair re­spond­ed with a buck­et brigade and quick­ly ex­tin­guished the fire be­fore it en­gulfed the ve­hi­cle.

A video post­ed on so­cial me­dia showed po­lice of­fi­cers at the scene in­spect­ing the ve­hi­cle for ev­i­dence and as­sess­ing the dam­age.

Williams said CCTV footage showed an in­di­vid­ual wear­ing blue jeans and a black jer­sey run­ning from the scene. A get­away ve­hi­cle was al­so seen fur­ther down the street.

Asked about a pos­si­ble mo­tive, Williams said she be­lieved the at­tack was in re­sponse to a sto­ry she had writ­ten.

She said she is ac­cus­tomed to threats, but the in­ci­dent has left her daugh­ter shak­en.

In a state­ment, the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MATT) said it was re­lieved Williams and her daugh­ter were safe and ex­tend­ed its sup­port to the fam­i­ly.

It added, "We call on the TTPS to con­duct a swift, thor­ough and trans­par­ent in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine who was re­spon­si­ble and the mo­tive be­hind the at­tack."

While not­ing there was no ev­i­dence link­ing the at­tack to Williams' work at this stage, MATT said the pos­si­bil­i­ty could not be ruled out.

"Giv­en the se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions for press free­dom should that prove to be the case, we urge the TTPS to treat this mat­ter with the ut­most se­ri­ous­ness and en­sure that every in­ves­tiga­tive av­enue is pur­sued."

MATT said there are grow­ing con­cerns about the en­vi­ron­ment in which jour­nal­ists op­er­ate, adding that Trinidad and To­ba­go fell 13 places to 32nd in the 2026 World Press Free­dom In­dex pub­lished by Re­porters With­out Bor­ders.

Po­lice said in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.