Leader(s) Mariano Sánchez Covisa Political position Far-right | Active region(s) Spain | |
Dates of operation 1968 (1968)–1980 (1980) Motives Anticommunism. Opposing democracy and secularism. Ideology Carlism
Fascism
Anticommunism
Spanish nationalism
Francoism
National Catholicism
Catholic fundamentalism | ||
Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey (lit. "Warriors of Christ the King") was a Spanish paramilitary fascist group that operated in the late 1970s.
They emerged at a time of factionism within the Carlist movement. Historically Carlism was a traditionalist, legitimist and Catholic movement, supporting a different monarchial line to the one occupying the Spanish throne. But when the succession fell to Carlos Hugo, he began to support Social Democracy ideology under the banner of the Carlist Party. This caused large scale conflict within the movement; many proclaimed his more traditionalist minded brother, Sixtus Henry, as Carlist regent.
Probably the most notable incident involving the group was the Montejurra Incidents of 1976, which happened during the annual Carlist peregrination to that mountain in Navarre. During this attack, two supporters of the Carlos Hugo faction (Ricardo García Pellejero and Aniano Jiménez Santo) were killed. José Luis Marín García Verde and Hermenegildo García Llorente, alleged members of this armed group, were arrested later, but were later released without investigation as Manuel Fraga Iribarne (Member of Franco´s Dictatorship board) gave direct instructions not to prosecute these murders. The presence of known European Fascist criminals from Argentina (called Triple A or Alianza Apostólica Anticomunista, responsible for several murders in Spain too) and Italy in this has left to some speculating a link to the Cold War-era Operation Gladio.