José Antonio Martínez Soler (born January 8, 1947) is the founder of 20 minutos, Spain's daily newspaper based in Madrid with 14 editions in major cities.
[1][2] During his time as chief editor of the weekly Doblón, after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco, he was kidnapped, tortured, and faced a simulated execution.
His kidnappers attempted to obtain the source of the information contained in his article about the purge of non-Francoist generals and moderate chiefs of the military.
The source gave him information to write and publish an article called “De Vega a Campano.” The source provided the information to stop the purge so that the Francoists would be unable to purge any further pro-democracy military personnel.
He conducted interviews with the Spanish presidential candidates, Felipe Gonzalez and Jose Maria Aznar, in 1996.