ANTONIO Tejero, who led a failed coup attempt in Spain in 1981 has died at the age of 93.
The former Guardia Civil officer supported the regime of General Franco and with others, tried to restore a far-right government, some six years after the dictator’s death.
His attempt came to nothing after King Juan Carlos refused to back the uprising and in a late-night television address, ordered Tejero and his colleagues to adhere to democracy.
TEJERO IN CONGRESS, FEBRUARY 1981(Cordon Press image)
Tejero, who had been involved in another attempted coup in 1978, was sentenced to 30 years in jail for his role in the events of 1981, but was released after serving half that time.
Photographs of Tejero waving a gun at Congress representatives in February 1981 are some of the most dramatic images in Spain’s democratic post-Franco era.
His death on Wednesday was in Alzira, Valencia, and announced by the law firm A. Cañizares Abogados on behalf of the Tejero family.
“His death occurred peacefully, surrounded by his entire family and after receiving the holy sacraments,” said the firm.
His lawyer, Luís Felipe Utrera Molina, paid tribute to him in a message posted on X.
“Lieutenant Colonel Don Antonio Tejero Molina has died,” he wrote.
“A man of honour, of unshakeable faith and with a great love for Spain. May God grant him the peace that men have denied him.”
Tejero’s passing came two days after the 45th anniversary of the failed coup in Spain’s Congress and coincided with Wednesday’s release of top secret documents concerning the uprising.
The files included a report from the Ministry of Defence which said that intelligence service members were involved in, or had knowledge of, the coup plot.
Tejero was born in Malaga province on April 30, 1932.
Shortly before his birth, his father secured work at a military outpost, where the family would spend the early stages of the 1936-1939 civil war.
Growing up in a military environment imprinted on a young Tejero the fascist values of Franco’s regime: anti-communism, anti-liberalism, an opposition to the distribution of power among Spain’s regions, and ‘above all the awareness of the superiority of the military over the civilian sphere’, according to historian Roberto Muñoz Bolaños.
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