Robert Firth
SPAIN’S Supreme Court has given the green light to the government to exhume former dictator Francisco Franco from the Valley of the Fallen.
Pedro Sanchez’s socialist government had pledged to move the ex-tyrant‘s body from underneath the monument and move him to a cemetery in Madrid, where his wife is buried.
But Franco’s family lodged an appeal, arguing that if his body is to be moved, it should be reburied in Madrid’s Catedral de la Almudena where the dictator’s daughter had bought a grave.
Sanchez’s government had originally planned to move the dictator on June 10, but the Supreme Court forced it to delay the move date after receiving an appeal.
The appeal was lodged by the Franco family and other groups, including the Francisco Franco Foundation and the Benedictine community in Cuelgamuros, where Franco is presently buried.
The six magistrates took just over an hour to unanimously reject the Franco family’s appeal against the exhumation of the body and its reburial in the Madrid cemetery.
