Juan José Luque Argenti

Spanish civil engineer and anarcho-syndicalist. He held numerous government infrastructure jobs and became the chief engineer of the Board of Works for the Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. For his activities against the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, he was deported to Cap Juby (now part of Western Sahara). He was part of the CNT group took part in the plot of 'Sanjuanada', the attempted military uprising on the eveniong of 24 June, 1926 that attempted to overthrow Primo de Rivera. Arrested, he was finally acquitted by a court martial in 1927. He was also dismissed as chief engineer of the Board of Works for the Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. During the Civil War he was a member of the National Committee of the CNT and participated in important meetings of the political section of the anarcho-syndicalist union.

He was also one of the leaders of the Associació Nacional de Tècnics d'Espanya (ANTE), attached to the CNT. In 1938 he worked in the newspaper 'CNT Marítima' and was a member of the Consell Econòmic Confederal. When fascist troops reached the capital, he was one of the few members of the National Committee who had not abandoned Madrid. Following Franco's triumph, he was arrested and remained in jail, where he met Cipriano Mera Sanz, until at least 1944. Following his release, he joined several clandestine CNT committees, representing the Canary Islands. He became a member of the Provisional National Committee of the CNT formed in November 1945 and later was appointed the CNT representative on the Alliance Nationale des Forces Démocratiques (ANFD), tasked with forging links with anti-Franco monarchists. In April 1946 the whole National Committee was arrested with the exception of Luque, who flee abroad. The talks with the monarchists continued until August 1948 when Juan Borbon, the pretender to the throne, came to an arrangement with Franco. He returned to Spain in August 1951 under safe-conduct agreement that fixed his residence in Madrid, where he remained on probation. A few months after he was arrested during a raid which also was detained Tierno Galvan. Juan José Luque Argenti died August 29, 1957 at the Los Alamos clinic in Madrid.