Antonio Tejero

Antonio Tejero Molina (born 30 April 1932) is a Spanish former lieutenant colonel of the Guardia Civil. He was the most prominent figure in the failed coup d'état against the newly democratic Spanish government on 23 February 1981 when he stormed the Congress of Deputies with 200 armed Civil Guards. For this reason, he was sentenced to thirty years' imprisonment for the crime of consummated military rebellion, with the aggravating circumstance of recidivism.

He had previously been arrested for his involvement in the failed coup attempt during Operation Galaxia in 1978.

Early life

Tejero was born on 30 April 1932 in Alhaurín el Grande, Province of Málaga, Spain.<ref name="huff">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="roberto">Template:Cite journal</ref> His parents had moved there shortly before Tejero was born, and his father began working at a military outpost.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The family spent the early years of the Spanish Civil War there.<ref name="roberto" />

Career

He entered the Guardia Civil at the General Military Academy in Zaragoza on 23 July 1951.<ref name="roberto" /> Tejero was promoted to lieutenant in 1955, remaining on compulsory leave in Melilla.<ref name="roberto" /> In January 1956, he voluntarily took command of the Capellades line in Catalonia.<ref name="roberto" /> He was promoted to captain in 1958 and posted to Province of Pontevedra, where he remained until 1960 when he was transferred, at his own request, to Province of Málaga.<ref name="roberto" />

In 1963, he was promoted to major, and served in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Badajoz.<ref name="roberto" />

In 1974, he became a lieutenant colonel, serving as the leader of the Comandancia in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa, but had to ask to be transferred to another region when his public declarations against the Basque flag, the Ikurriña, became known.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="elpais">Template:Cite news</ref> For his accomplishments in the Basque Country, and in combating ETA, he was named Chief of the Planning Staff of the Civil Guard in Madrid. But during his career, he had also begun to accumulate a record of dissent.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> ETA militants would rig bombs to Ikurriñas; when police officers tried to remove the flag, the bombs exploded, killing several Guardia Civil officers. When the Ikurriña was 'legalized', Tejero sent a telegram to Madrid, asking if he should pay honors to the Ikurriña. In Malaga, he ordered or took a major part in a military deployment around the town during the seizure of a flag.

In 1978, Tejero, along with Police Captain Template:Ill and an Army General Staff colonel, whose name was never made public, attempted a coup, known as Operation Galaxia. Tejero was sentenced to a short prison term for mutiny after the collapse of the attempted coup. He was in prison for seven months and seven days.

Attempted 1981 coup

On 23 February 1981, Tejero entered the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Spanish Parliament, with 150 Guardia Civil members and soldiers and held the congress members hostage for some 22 hours. Around midnight, when it became clear that no further army units had joined the putsch, King Juan Carlos I gave a nationally televised address denouncing the coup and urging the preservation of law and continuance of the democratically elected government. The following day, coup leaders surrendered and were brutally beaten and arrested by the police.<ref name="elpais"/>

Life after jail sentence

Held in jail after the coup attempt, Tejero founded the Spanish Solidarity party to run in the 1982 general election and obtain parliamentary immunity. With a nationwide total of Template:Nts votes (0.14% of votes cast), the party failed to obtain parliamentary representation.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Tejero was the last of the coup participants to be released from jail on 3 December 1996, having then served 15 years in the Alcalá de Henares military prison. He lived in Torre del Mar in the Province of Málaga. In 2006, he wrote to the newspaper Melilla Hoy, calling for a referendum on Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) proposals granting a new measure of autonomy to Catalonia.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Following the death of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 2006, Tejero attended a Pinochet homage in Madrid.<ref>"Viudos de Franco" homenajearon a Pinochet en España Template:Webarchive</ref> In 2009, Tejero's son, Ramón Tejero Díez, wrote to the conservative newspaper ABC describing his father as a sincere religious man who was trying to do his best for Spain.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

As of 2018, Tejero was residing in Madrid and Torre del Mar, and was working as a painter.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On 23 February 2018, he attended the funeral of the 1st Duchess of Franco.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On 29 May 2018, a rumour of Tejero's death was spread and hailed by Spanish military veterans and supporters,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> but was quickly refuted by his son.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On 24 October 2019, at the age of 87, Tejero took part in a protest against the reburial of the remains of Francisco Franco in Madrid.<ref>Spanien: Des Diktators allerletzte Ruhe (in German) 24. Oktober 2019</ref>

On 23 October 2025, news spread again that Tejero had died. His son denied Tejero's death while acknowledging that he is hospitalized in a critical condition.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=lavanguardia1>Template:Cite news</ref>

External links

• Template:IMDb name
• Antonio Tejero at Encyclopædia Britannica