José Raúl Gallego Triguero

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José Raúl Gallego had always lived in Getafe. Because of his bald head and the beard he had worn since he was young, he was known by his friends as “Grandad” . He was a quiet, introvert and extremely meticulous person and as a result, was always given the most special jobs at the company where he worked fitting floorboards and parquet. That morning he was taking a suburban train to the Telecinco offices at Fuencarral.

11 March 2004 fell on a Thursday. Early that morning, a number of terrorists with links to Al-Qaeda planted thirteen bombs on four suburban trains covering routes running through Madrid. Ten of the bombs exploded between 7.37 and 7.39 am, when the trains were at Atocha, El Pozo and Santa Eugenia stations and alongside Calle Téllez. 191 people were killed in the attack and around 1,500 were wounded. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Spanish history. On 3 April 2004, agents from the Special Operations Group (GEO) were about to enter an apartment in Leganés where the perpetrators of the attacks were believed to be hiding when the terrorists detonated twenty kilograms of explosives in an act of collective suicide. The ensuing blast killed one of the officers, bringing the total number of people killed by the 11 March bombers to 192.

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