Spain’s spies helped organize infamous coup attempt, documents reveal

Politico Europe · Feb 26, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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News Politics Putsch leader Antonio Tejero dies hours after Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declassifies files detailing the 1981 seizure of parliament in Madrid. Backed by 200 armed Civil Guard officers, Antonio Tejero succeeded in taking over the hemicycle on Feb. 23, 1981 and holding the entire Spanish government and nearly every member of parliament hostage. | Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images February 26, 2026 9:00 am CET Members of Spain’s intelligence service participated in the attempted coup that sought to overthrow the country’s fledging democracy in 1981, according to newly declassified documents published Wednesday. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sa´nchez alluded to the enduring mysteries surrounding the affair Monday, when he marked the 45th anniversary of the coup by announcing the declassification of the files in the government’s possession. “Memory cannot be kept under lock and key,” he wrote on X. “Democracies must know their past in order to build a freer future.” According to an internal report — prepared by the Higher Center of Information for Defense, or CESID, the country’s official intelligence agency between 1977 and 2002 — at least six of its officers “either knew about … or planned and carried out operational support” for Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Tejero’s plot to storm the Spanish parliament. Backed by 200 armed Civil Guard officers, Tejero succeeded in taking over the parliamentary hemicycle on Feb. 23, 1981 and holding the entire Spanish government and nearly every member of parliament hostage in a bid to derail the country’s transition to democracy after four decades of authoritarian rule. But the plot was thwarted by then-King Juan Carlos I, who delivered a televised address denouncing the coup and ultimately persuaded the plotters to free the lawmakers and surrender after an 18 hour standoff. According to the declassified report published Wednesday, the agents used CESID transmitters and vehicles to give Tejero logistical support as his troops carried out their invasion of the parliament and later kept the plotters aware of movements outside the building after they took it over. Once the coup was foiled, the agents worked to cover up their participation in the affair by altering records to mislead investigators as to their whereabouts throughout the day of the attempted putsch. Spanish Prime Minister alluded to the enduring mysteries surrounding the affair Monday, when he marked the 45th anniversary of the coup by announcing the declassification of the files in the government’s possession. | Eduardo Parra/Europa Press via Getty Images While all six of the agents mentioned in the report were subsequently expelled from the intelligence service, only two of them were ever prosecuted for their involvement, and just one — Captain Vicente Gómez Iglesias — was convicted. He was sentenced to six years in prison but was pardoned after serving half that term. Former king not implicated The documents regarding the 1981 coup attempt have been the source of intense speculation in the decades that have elapsed since the failed putsch. Former King Juan Carlos I — who abdicated in 2014 and has been living in self-imposed exile in Abu Dhabi since 2020 — was initially celebrated for the speech that led Tejero’s troops to stand down. But in recent decades historians and researchers have raised doubts as to how the monarch could have been unaware of the planned putsch, which was partially organized by General Alfonso Armada, a longtime friend who had once been his tutor and spent years serving as head of the Royal Household. Historians sought to temper expectations ahead of the publication of the secret files on Wednesday, pointing out that the most sensitive documents were likely destroyed immediately after the coup. “I don’t believe any documents will surface that compromise the position of King Juan Carlos, before, during, and after his reign,” historian Julián Casanova told Cadena Ser. The documents published Wednesday suggest Spain’s ex-king was not implicated in the coup and pressured participants to back down. In a transcript of a call with General Jaime Milans del Bosch, who deployed tanks onto the streets of Valencia in a show of support for the putsch, the monarch ordered the units be recalled and vowed to stand up to all rebellious forces. “Any coup d’état cannot hide behind the King; it is against the King,” he is recorded as saying, adding: “I swear that I will neither abdicate the Crown nor abandon Spain.” “I don’t believe any documents will surface that compromise the position of King Juan Carlos, before, during, and after his reign,” historian Julián Casanova told Cadena Ser. | Daniel Perez/Getty Images Other declassified documents in the trove suggest the theory alleging the monarch backed the coup was originally spread by far-right agitators. “The extreme right wants to implicate the monarchy and destroy it as a democratic institution,” warns a Spanish Communist Party source cited in a memo detailing the national mood several months after the failed putsch. The Royal Household was so worried about these rumors that, in the lead up to the 1982 trial of the plotters, it deployed a representative to meet with Armada and Milans del Bosch and ensure neither mentioned the king in their testimony. According to a declassified CESID memo on the conversations, the aim was “to ensure that the Crown is not damaged by the legal proceedings.” Death of a coup leader Hours after the secret files were published Wednesday, Tejero, the most well-known of the plotters involved in the coup, died at the age of 93. The lieutenant-colonel became the symbol of the failed attempt to overthrow the government just minutes into his takeover of the parliament, when cameras broadcasting the plenary session recorded him firing his pistol at the ceiling of the hemicycle. An ultraconservative who had already been prosecuted for a failed coup attempt in 1978, Tejero was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his failed 1981 putsch. While higher-ranking officials involved in the affair were pardoned within a few years, the Civil Guard official spent 15 years behind bars. Expelled from Spain’s gendarmerie, he sporadically participated in ultranationalist events, including a protest opposing the removal of Francisco Franco’s remains from their monumental tomb in the Valle de los Caídos. In 2023 he filed a legal complaint against Sánchez for alleged crimes of conspiracy and attempted sedition in relation to his contacts with separatist political parties. The courts declined to pursue the matter. Among the declassified documents published Wednesday are transcripts of the telephone conversations between Tejero’s wife, Carmen Díez Pereira, and close friends on the night of the foiled putsch. As it became increasingly clear that the attempted coup was doomed to failure, she is recorded as referring to her husband as a “wretch” and “fool” who had been misled by his superiors. “What a wretch, so much love for his country, giving his all, look how they’ve deceived him,” she complained. “They’re going to abandon him like a cigarette butt on the floor.”