Thursday, they will exhume the remains of the dictator Franco – News

The remains of dictator Francisco Franco will be exhumed from his mausoleum in the Valley of the Dead and transferred by helicopter – and without distinction – to the Madrid cemetery of El Pardo-Mingorrubio, next Thursday at 10:30 (17:30, Argentina time), The government Spanish announced on Monday.

"The exhumation and reburial will take place in the privacy of their relatives." The acting Minister of Justice, Dolores Delgado, will be present during the exhumation, transfer and burial of Franco in his Major notary state of the Kingdom, "said the executive in a statement.

The government of the socialist Pedro Sánchez will realize its most symbolic initiative, which has an international impact, since Franco is the last European dictator whose remains are always based on a public monument, where he can be exalted.

The transfer of the coffin will take place one day before the expiry of the deadline set by the Spanish Socialist Government itself to fulfill its political promise.

Sánchez announced his decision to exhume Franco after his arrival to the presidency of the government in June 2018 through a no-confidence motion against conservative President Mariano Rajoy.

However, the dictator's grandchildren opposed judicial measures and threatened to take the remains to La Almudena Cathedral, which would have thrown aside the emblematic initiative of the Socialists, since Franco happened to be elsewhere public and even more accessible for those who claim to claim their silhouette.

The family of the dictator has benefited from the help of the authorities of the Catholic Church who control the basilica of the fallen valley, which opposes any authorization of exhumation.

However, on September 30, the Spanish Supreme Court ended the discussion by giving the government the green light to transfer the remains of the dictator.

"The government defended from the beginning of the process that the remains of the dictator could not continue in a public mausoleum that would exalt his silhouette, which is expressly prohibited by the law on historical memory," they remember at La Moncloa.

The executive also emphasizes that "the firm and unanimous decision of the Supreme Court" put an end to the administrative litigation process initiated by the family to prevent "the transfer, with which the legal guarantee is absolute.

Since his death in 1975, Franco rests in a tomb in the basilica of the Valley of the Dead, a mausoleum located about 50 kilometers from Madrid – controlled by the Benedictine community – that he had built himself with forced labor of Republican prisoners the triumph of the national fascist party in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).

Instead are the remains of Franco and Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, the only Franco-American party, with 33,000 bodies, most of the Republican victims whose remains were stolen from mass graves in all over Spain to fill the columbrados. from the speaker.

After hearing the decision of the Supreme Court, Sanchez stated that "with the exhumation of Franco" the circle of Spanish democracy was symbolically closed.

However, the Spanish democracy does not fully reimburse its debt to the victims.

More than forty years after the end of the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975), most of the remains of victims buried in mass graves and in the valley of the dead themselves remain unidentified.

In addition, relatives of the Franco regime's retaliation continue to claim the dignity and justice of the Spanish state, which was denied them all the time, and led them to resort to foreign courts, such as Is the case in the Argentine justice, which investigates the crimes against humanity committed by Franco.

Adrián Cragnolini report.