As a reporter I have been involved some dangerous situations related to war and terrorism. Once I witnessed and followed a Police operation against a terrorist group very active in my city. I went with the police to a terrorist safe-house where the terrorists had hidden lots of weapons and explosives and they have prepared a place ready to hold a kidnaped person.
One of the terrorists who was arrested was present during the search of the place as was I, and he threatened me and my photographer to death. He was looking at me madly as if I was the only responsible for his fall. I was scared of him despite he was arrested and handcuffed. He kept telling me he knew who we were and that we will pay for what we were doing. I said nothing a continued taking notes about the operations to write my article for my newspaper.
Soon, the police took him away and I felt better.
During the operation the police had arrested three members of the terrorist cell: two men and a woman. She was the boss. She had been wounded in a shooting with the agents. When they caught her she had two handguns, and three grenades concealed under her coat. She opened fire against the police when they stopped her in the middle of a very busy street. His partner tried to escape, but was caught nearby.
After that arrest the police found the third terrorist who was the owner of the safe-house and was present during the search the police made on the premises. They found weapons and bombs already prepared along with explosives to make more bombs. There were also maps and sketches of public places and some houses and itineraries of people they planned to kill.
The terrorists lived there and all three of them were very thin, but in the laundry, there were a very large pants size XXL and a matching big shirt. So I began to think that there was a fourth terrorist the police had no arrested and was on the loose, free to fulfil the threat against me. So From that day I began to do crazy things like change every day my route to go to work and back home, avoid big people with bulky clothes, and so on. It took me weeks to go back to normal. It was the irrational fear i had.
The terrorists went to prison and in less than 20 years they were set free despite they had killed 18 people and wounded over 30. Wonders of the Spanish Judicial System.
The one who threatened me, came back to my city sooner than that, and we sometimes met on the street. We ignore each other. But is not easy. They told me he has distanced himself from the terrorist group while in prison and is rehabilitated. But his companions are still politically active in extremists groups, and they never apologised for the murders they committed.
In the picture, me when I was a young reporter, at the age when those facts happened
After 28 years working as a journalist for a newspaper, glued to the strict facts and trying to be precise and truthful, I kind of burned my writing style. It’s very difficult for me to compose something creative. And it’s a shame, because I once upon a time had some talent, and lots of ideas for short stories and poetry. Even I published a poem with some success. But I was young and enthusiastic then, and didn’t have experienced the harsh life of a street reporter, with a daily deadline to deliver my news and the need to tell real stories as accurate as possible, with as few words as possible. No adjectives. No fancy descriptions. Just so: what, who, when, where, why. Everything else, had no space in my work.
Back in the 90s I went to Bosnia Herzegovina as a reporter during the Balkans war. I contacted with a local journalist hoping to obtain some good sources and information about what was going on in Mostar, taking advantage of my knowledge of the language. So I left the group of foreign correspondents who were working in the area with a translator, based in Medjugorje, where the Spanish troops had their headquarters.
