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Murder, sex and obsession: retracing the footsteps of a yeti hunter slain in the Hindu Kush

Jordi Magraner spent 15 years in Chitral in search of a Himalayan Yeti, a quest that ended with his murder in 2002. Seven years later, journalist Gabi Martinez followed in his footsteps, and the result is a riveting book


In the Land of Giants: Hunting Monsters in the Hindu Kush
by Gabi Martinez
Scribe

"“Some stories are hard to believe, and this is one of them,” writes lauded Spanish author Gabi Martinez near the start of In the Land of Giants, his 11th book and an inspired telling of an uncommon story.

It’s a story that is fable-like in its outlines, yet unmistakably grounded in some of the harsher realities of our times.

Indeed, from the outset, writes Martinez, there was “something marvellous” about this story of renowned Spanish zoologist Jordi Magraner, who, one morning in August 2002, was found with his throat cut in Pakistan’s Chitral region, where he’d lived for 15 years. Magraner had been searching for the mythical barmanu – as locals call the cryptid of the Hindu Kush. The morning after his death, the newspaper headlines all said the same thing: “Yeti hunter found murdered.”

Seven years later, no one had been convicted for his killing – nor has anyone since – and rumours still swirled around the 44-year-old Spaniard’s slaying, with some newspapers hinting at the involvement of secret government agents, others that it was a crime of passion. Even the few reported facts of his life seemed to have mythical dimensions; revered by the Kalash, an ancient pagan people of the Hindu Kush who had buried his body with honour, Magraner had also been involved in humanitarian convoys in Afghanistan as well as with Alliance Française in Peshawar.

There were also suggestions he had had dealings with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the region’s legendary anti-Taliban resistance leader. But for Martinez, unravelling the mystery and, indeed, the marvels of the zoologist’s life and death would prove as dangerous as it was irresistible. It would mean retracing the footsteps of the yeti hunter into Pakistan’s northern valleys – the region that, in 2009, was the operational base of al-Qaeda..."

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