Antonio Tejero

Antonio Tejero Molina (born 30 April 1932) is a Spanish former lieutenant colonel of the Guardia Civil, and the most prominent figure in the failed coup d'état against the newly democratic Spanish government on 23 February 1981.

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Tejero and the second or maternal family name is Molina.
Antonio Tejero
Antonio Tejero with a gun in his hand, breaking into the Spanish Congress of Deputies on 23 February 1981 attempting a coup.
Born (1932-04-30) 30 April 1932
Alhaurín el Grande, Spain
Allegiance Spain
Service/branch Guardia Civil
Years of service1951–1981
RankLieutenant Colonel

Career

Tejero entered the Guardia Civil in 1951 with the rank of lieutenant and assigned to a post in Catalonia. In 1958, he was promoted to captain and posted successively to Galicia, Vélez-Málaga and the Canary Islands. In 1963, he was promoted to major, and served in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Badajoz. 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.[1][2] 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.[3] 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', he 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 Ricardo Sáenz de Ynestrillas 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 seven months and seven days.

Attempted 1981 coup
Main article: 1981 Spanish coup d'état attempt

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 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.[2]

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 28,451 votes (0.14% of votes cast), the party failed to obtain parliamentary representation.[4] 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.[5] Following the death of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 2006, Tejero attended a Pinochet homage in Madrid.[6] 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.[7]

As of 2018, Tejero was residing in Madrid and Torre del Mar, and was working as a painter.[8] On 23 February 2018, he attended the funeral of the 1st Duchess of Franco.[9] On 29 May 2018, a rumour of Tejero's death was spread and hailed by Spanish military veterans and supporters,[10] but was quickly refuted by his son.[11]

References
  1. Staff (23 February 1981). "1981: Rebel army seizes control in Spain". BBC News, archived at BBC On This Day. BBC. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  2. Staff (25 February 1981). "Detenidos el teniente coronel Tejero y los jefes y oficiales que secundaron el golpe militar". ELPAÍS.com (in Spanish). Madrid: Edicíones El País. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  3. Staff (24 February 1981). "El teniente coronel Tejero, una biografía repleta de incidentes". ELPAÍS.com (in Spanish). Madrid: Edicíones El País. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  4. Amiguet, Teresa (4 June 2017). "3-F: El juicio. ¿Qué fue de los golpistas?". La Vanguardia.
  5. Staff (23 February 2006). "Tejero, 25 años después". Elmundo.es (in Spanish). Madrid: Mundinteractivos, S.A. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  6. "Viudos de Franco" homenajearon a Pinochet en España Archived 2015-02-05 at the Wayback Machine
  7. Staff (June 2010). "Antonio Tejero: "Hijo, por Dios y por Ella hago lo que tengo que hacer..."". 20minutos.es (in Spanish). Madrid: Multiprensa y Mas, S.L. C.I.F. Retrieved 14 August 2010.
  8. "Así es la vida de Antonio Tejero 37 años después del golpe de Estado del 23F: jubilado y artista". La Sexta Noticias (in Spanish). Madrid: Atresmedia Corporación de Medios de Comunicación, S.A. 22 February 2018. Retrieved 16 October 2018.
  9. "Equipo de Investigación localiza al teniente coronel Tejero, el hombre que asaltó el Congreso el 23F". La Sexta Noticias (in Spanish). Madrid: Atresmedia Corporación de Medios de Comunicación, S.A. 23 February 2018. Retrieved 16 October 2018.
  10. "El teniente coronel Tejero no ha muerto, según su hijo". El Plural (in Spanish). 29 May 2018. Retrieved 16 October 2018.
  11. "El hijo de Antonio Tejero niega que su padre haya muerto". El Confidencial Digital (in Spanish). 29 May 2018. Retrieved 16 October 2018.
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