Tejero, 1981 Coup Leader, Dies as Spain Releases 23F Files

Antonio Tejero, the former Spanish lieutenant colonel who orchestrated a dramatic failed coup against Spain's young democracy in 1981, died on Wednesday at the age of 93 in the eastern town of Alzira. His passing came on the same day the Spanish government declassified a trove of documents related to the attempted putsch, an event that has long symbolized the fragility and resilience of the nation's post-dictatorship transition.

Tejero led the incursion on February 23, 1981, when he and roughly 200 armed civil guards stormed the lower house of parliament in Madrid shortly after 6 p.m. The attackers interrupted a vote to confirm Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo as prime minister, firing shots at the ceiling and forcing lawmakers to take cover under their desks. Tejero, wearing the distinctive tricorn hat of the civil guard, brandished a pistol and shouted, "Everyone, freeze!" The standoff lasted nearly 18 hours, with the plotters holding parliament members and ministers hostage in a bid to halt Spain's shift to democracy following the 1975 death of dictator Francisco Franco.

The coup collapsed after then-King Juan Carlos I appeared on national television in military uniform, urging the...