Spain will exhume, relocate Franco's remains

Spain will exhume, relocate Franco's remains

PanARMENIAN.Net - It is an issue that has divided Spanish opinion for decades, but the remains of the country's fascist dictator General Francisco Franco will be exhumed and relocated on October 24, Spain's government said Monday, October 21, CNN reports.

Franco was buried in a grand mausoleum called the Valley of the Fallen, northwest of Madrid, soon after his death in 1975.

The monument, which was partially built by political prisoners of his regime and is the site of a mass grave of Spanish Civil War victims, has since become a draw for tourists and far-right sympathizers who rally at it on the anniversary of Franco's death on November 20.

In September, Spain's Supreme Court ruled that the dictator could be exhumed from the mausoleum. His remains will now be relocated to the Mingorrubio state cemetery in El Pardo, 12 miles north of Madrid, where the dictator's wife is buried.

The exhumation was one of acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's key policy pledges when he came into power last year and was made a royal decree in August 2018 by the incumbent Socialist Party.

Franco's family and his far-right supporters have opposed the plan and the family appealed the decision in the courts.

The Supreme Court also rejected the family's request for the body of the dictator be buried in the Cathedral of La Almundena in central Madrid.

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