José Antonio Gurriarán is a well-known Spanish journalist and has had exclusive interviews with Salvador Dali, Indira Gandhi and Jacqueline Kennedy. However, he believes he matured ideologically in the 1980s when an unfortunate accident compelled him to examine the Armenian Genocide and turned him into a person with claims.

29 December 1980, Madrid: José Antonio Gurriarán left the editorial office earlier than usual. He and his wife were going to go to the movie theater to watch one of Woody Allen’s films. Suddenly, a bomb blasted. As a professional journalist, Gurriarán approached a phone booth to present the situation to his colleague, and it was at that moment when the second bomb blasted, making the journalist lose one of his legs. The struggle for life and death wasn’t short-lived.

“I have gone through the most brutal and most interesting situations in my life because I have felt the ��?burning coldness’ of death very up close,” Gurriarán said.

Who was behind the bombing? This was Gurriarán’s first question after his recovery. The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA)-at the time, the well-known journalist knew nothing about neither that organization nor Armenia and the Armenians.

“I met the members of ASALA. They came to the meeting with masks and armed with Kalashnikovs. I gave their leader Martin Luther King’s book, thinking that that would give him something to think about on the path that he had chosen,” Gurriarán said.

For over 30 years now, José Antonio Gurriarán has been studying the Armenian Genocide, condemning the crime perpetrated by the Young Turks and calling on Turkey to recognize it. Gurriarán has become a great friend of the Armenian people and a supporter of Armenian Genocide recognition in Spain. On one occasion, Gurriarán said that international egoism is mainly to blame for oblivion of the Armenian Genocide.

“The Turkish government is closing its eyes and ears. It doesn’t have the courage to acknowledge what its ancestors did. However, there are already Turkish intellectuals who condemn the genocide, such as Orhan Pamuk and Taner Akcam,” José Antonio Gurriarán said.

José Antonio Gurriarán

The journalist is against Turkey’s accession to the European Union. He believes that country doesn’t have the right to join the club of civilized and democratic nations as long as it hasn’t acknowledged the Genocide.

Armenia and the Armenians have touched the depths of the Spanish journalist’s soul. The journalist considers the Armenians a nation of educated and diligent people with a rich culture.

Gurriarán has published two books about what happened to him and the Armenian Genocide, including the books “La bomba” (The Bomb) and “The Armenians: A Forgotten Genocide”. French-Armenian director Robert Guédiguian has produced the film “The Story of a Crazy Man”, which is based on the latter, has been shown at the Cannes Film Festival and was the opening film for the 12^th Golden Apricot International Film Festival.

José Antonio Gurriarán is a Spanish journalist, prose writer and publicist and became popular for his series of interview with and reports on Indira Gandhi from India. He has also been an investigative journalist for the murder of U.S. President John Kennedy.