I have just received from Spain the terrible news: Jordi Magraner,
by the way of 2 news articles just published (see my two preceding messages), was assassinated in Pakistan, undoubtedly by one of his guides.
Magraner's body was discovered Friday. .....Michel Raynal

Spanish Zoologist Found Dead
Jordi Magraner, 1967 - 2002

© Pakistan's News Network International
CHITRAL, August 04, 2002 (NNI) - -A Spaniard searching for "Snow man" [or called in Pakistan, the barmanu or the Pakistani wildman] was stabbed to death by his local servant, accused managed to escape after committing crime. According to detail, a Spanish, Mage John Judi, residing in a local hotel in Kalash Valley with his servant for the last 15 years. Mr. Judi often wandering in the jungle of Chitrals and Afghanistan in search of "Snow Man" and employed two Afghan and a local national to help him.

Shamas-ur-Reham, one of his servants reported police station that Mr. Judi was stabbed to death with knife in his bedroom. Police has taken the dead body into custody and started investigation. Police source said that his visa was expired from the last several weeks and he was residing illegally and was involved in some mysterious activities. He was also served with notices to leave the country. Police further disclosed that he has kept several pet animals including horses and dogs and his house was furnished with sophisticated communication equipment and no body was allowed to go near his residential areas. It is believed that he used to go to Afghanistan by his horses and had dubious links, due to this he has many foes and one of them might kill him for his alleged activities.
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En francais:
Bonjour à tous,
Après Grands Reportages, c'est au tour de Trek Magazine du mois d'août 2002 de consacrer un article aux recherches de Jordi Magraner sur le barmanu, l'homme sauvage et velu du nord du Pakistan.
Michel Raynal: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/cryptozoo/actualit/2002/grandsreportages.htm
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In English:
Hello with all, After Great Reports, it is with the turn of Trek Magazine of August 2002 to devote an article in the searches of Jordi Magraner on the barmanu, the wild and hairy man of the north of Pakistan. Sent in by Michel Raynal
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/cryptozoo/actualit/2002/grandsreportages.htm

To translate this website from French into English go here:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/translate.dyn
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"Jordi Magraner considers that there may be two types of human being existing on earth, Homo sapiens and a 'neanderthal-type' cousin. Magraner, a zoologist, had been looking for the Barmanu for two years as of May 8, 1994, according to an AFB report out of Islamabad. At that time, he and his two other team members - all Europeans - remained in the Shishi Kuh valley, hopeful that the Barmanu would show up and prove their contention. Magraner spoke twice of hearing the Barmanu's guttural cry - resembling both a human and a jackal. His associates have also heard its noise and seen its footprints in mountainous Chitral, Pakistan. Magraner deems the beast not merely the topic of folktales. It, like bigfoot, is supposed to smell horrible and be very hairy. In fact, Barmanu means, in Chitrali language, 'big hairy one."

Paragraph credit: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~bz050/HomePage.ftcn.html
- --- - ---
News Item:

07 August 2002 Wednesday 27 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1423
Six arrested for killing Spaniard

PESHAWAR, Aug 6: The police have arrested six suspects in connection with the murder of a Spanish researcher and his servant in the Chitral district, sources said.

"The suspects are all residents of the area," a local police officer Pir Azam said here. The Spaniard, named by relatives in France on Monday as Jordi Magraner, was found dead on Friday night in a house he was renting in a village near the town of Bumburate in Chitral's Kailash valley.

Police here gave the victim's identity as Federico Majraner and said he was also known as Jordi. They said he was 35 and his throat had been slit with a sharp weapon. His 12-year old servant, Wazir Ali, was also found dead with his throat slit.

Another domestic employee, Asif Ali, 20, an Afghan refugee had disappeared, they said.

Police reported that a computer and a satellite phone were missing from his home. Police suspect the missing Afghan may have slipped into neighbouring Nuristan province in eastern Afghanistan, which is just four hours away by foot. Bumburate lies 25km from the Afghan border.

Police said efforts were under way to track the missing Afghan, who they believe could help the investigation. Magraner had been on a 12-year mission to track down the so-called snowman, locally known as barmano, which is said to be found in the mountains of Chitral, police
and residents said.

Police said he was a frequent visitor to the area and stayed in a rented house in the Kalash valley, some 40km from Chitral. Police said they received a faxed message from his brother, Andrew,
asking that the funeral rites be performed by Magraner's friends in Kalash, as the researcher had stated in his will. A three-day funeral ceremony had begun in the Kalash valley, they said

Copyrigtht - AFP http://www.dawn.com/2002/08/07/nat15.htm
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Kalash stop Spaniard’s family from exhuming his body

PESHAWAR: The family of a Spaniard killed two years ago in northern Chitral has failed to convince the local Kalash people to allow them to exhume his body for burial in Spain.

Jordi Magraner, 35, a zoologist conducting research for over a decade on the snowman - known as barmanu (the big hairy one) in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan - was found murdered in a rented house in the picturesque Bomburete valley of Chitral district on August 2, 2002.

Magraner’s brothers Andrie and Audge and sister Esperaza arrived in the valley last week to exhume his body for its burial in his native Spain. However, the Kalash elders disallowed the exhumation, saying it was against their rites and was an unpardonable sin according to their religion.

The murdered Spaniard’s family returned to Spain with the personal belongings of their late brother. Mostly of the articles included local wooden objects as the Kalash use wooden articles and instruments in their everyday routine. Sources at the Chitral Airport said the articles packed in three boxes weighed over 250 kilograms.

Born in Catalan, Spain, in 1967, Jordi Magraner was a zoologist and cryptozoologist. He was said to be conducting field research for 12 years on the mythological Abominable Snowman, more commonly known as Yeti, after a film by the same name.

Police said Magraner and his 12-year-old servant Wazir Ali were killed with a sharp-edged weapon. Another servant Asif Ali, an Afghan from the neighbouring Afghan province of Nooristan, has been missing since and is the prime suspect.

Magraner had been on the track of barmanu, using scientific methods in his search and interviewing witnesses. Experts found his findings intriguing. During his expeditions through the Shishi Koh Valley in Chitral district between 1992 and 1994 to find barmanu he came across large footprints. Jordi Magraner also reported hearing two series of unusual guttural sounds, which he believed could have been made by a primitive primate. He interviewed witnesses who claimed to have seen the horrible smelling animal that made the sounds.
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