US EditionAntonio Tejero, Franco loyalist and leader of Spain's failed 1981 coup, dies at 93
- On February 25, the family and their law firm said Antonio Tejero Molina, the former Guardia Civil lieutenant colonel, died peacefully in Alzira at age 93.
- On Feb. 23, 1981, Tejero led about 200 armed civil guards into the Congreso de los Diputados to interrupt the session to swear in Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, driven by officers nostalgic for Franco-era privileges.
- Television cameras showed Tejero waving a pistol and wearing the Guardia Civil tricorn hat as officers fired and lawmakers took cover during nearly 18 hours of live broadcasts of the siege.
- Courts sentenced him to 30 years for military rebellion, and he served roughly 15 years before conditional liberty and expulsion from the Civil Guard.
- Tejero's death coincided with the Spanish government declassifying documents on the 23-F coup, which historians say underscored the fragility of democracy, while Javier Cercas's book 'Anatomy of an Instant' details the event that turned into 'the founding myth of Spanish democracy'.
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DECRYPTAGE - The declassification of the documents on the attempted putsch of Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Tejero shows that the sovereign in exile was immediately desolidated.
Spain's years after Franco's death in 1975 were marked by constant threats from armed forces dissatisfied with the democratic transition. Of the many coup attempts, only one reached the stage of action: the Tejero coup, named after its leader. The plot was thwarted largely by the actions of King Juan Carlos I, but the king was later accused of supporting the coup plotters. On the 45th anniversary of the coup attempt, the government declassified …
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said this Thursday that it would be "desirable" that the king emeritus,...
The popular president points out that the publication of official documents on the attempted coup has opened the debate on the role of Juan Carlos I, reviving conflicting opinions regarding his possible return to national territory
"The declassification of the 23-F documents should reconcile Spaniards with those who stopped the coup," says the PP president.
The Leader of the Attempted Coup in Spain Died on the Day the Confidential Documents Were Published.
Antonio Tejero, a former officer in the Spanish Civil Guard who led the attempted coup on February 23, 1981, which, contrary to their intentions, consolidated the young Spanish democracy, died in Spain on Wednesday at the age of 94. He died on the day confidential documents about the failed coup were published, foreign news agencies reported.
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