Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, material author and symbol of the 1981 coup d’état, has died at the age of 93 in Valencia, as reported by national media.
Tejero died two days after the 45th anniversary of the attempted coup d’état and the day on which the Government of Pedro Sánchez declassified the hitherto unknown documents related to 23-F: 153 documents from the Ministry of the Interior, Defense, Foreign Affairs, the Civil Guard with various transcripts of different telephone conversations and those of the National Police.
The image of Tejero, gun in hand and with the barrel pointed at the ceiling of the Congress of Deputies shouting “Everyone stay still! Sit down!” It has become one of the most recognizable and famous episodes in the recent history of Spain.
That break-in, which took place during the vote on the investiture as president of the Government of Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo after the resignation of Adolfo Suárez, was just the beginning of 17 hours in which the 350 deputies were kidnapped.
Tejero did not enter Congress alone, he did so accompanied by more than 250 armed civil guards.
Antonio Tejero in Congress
While the Benemérita agents fired at the ceiling, all the deputies remained crouched. All, except three: Adolfo Suárez, his vice president, Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado, and the leader of the Communist Party (PCE), Santiago Carrillo.
The coup began to fall under its own weight after the broadcast of a televised message from the then King, Juan Carlos I, in which he showed his support and support for the Constitution and democracy.
It was after 12:00 on February 24 when the deputies were released.
The lieutenant colonel was tried, along with 32 other people, for that failed coup attempt, and was finally sentenced to 30 years in prison for a crime of consummated military rebellion and for being recognized as one of the material authors of the event. However, he only served half of the sentence imposed.
Born on April 30, 1932 in Alhaurín el Grande, Málaga, Tejero was a lieutenant colonel in the Civil Guard in 1981, a force he joined in 1951 and from which he was expelled after carrying out the coup d’état of 23-F.
His last public appearance took place on October 24, 2019, when he went to the El Pardo-Mingorrubio cemetery for the reburial of the dictator Francisco Franco after being exhumed from the Valley of the Fallen.
