Thirty seconds he was on his knees on Franco's grave in the Valley of the Fallen with a can of paint in his hand. Just half a minute to do what he considers "the great work" of his career, which turned his image into a viral one and with which, he says, he wanted to transfer his message as the grandson of a grandfather of the Francoist side and another of the republican ranks during the Civil War: the reconciliation of the two Spain. A few seconds of glory that have also left him with months of threats , of looking under the car, of "living in terror" and of facing a legal accusation that could mean several years in jail .
These have been the face and cross of the life of the artist Enrique Tenreiro Lucena (A Coruña, 1969) since October 31, 2018 he made a controversial performance in which he painted a red dove on the grave of Francisco Franco while shouting " for the freedom and reconciliation of all Spaniards. " Now, nine months later - when it has transpired that the PSOE wants to close the Valley of the Fallen -, he begins to breathe easy because, according to a car to which Chronicle has had access, the judge sees in his performance a misdemeanor that could remain in A simple fine .
The first accusation that weighed on him, just after being arrested, was that of damages against patrimony and public disorder , so that together he could face a penalty of nine years in prison. The judge then focused on the crime of damage and appreciated an aggravating hate , bringing the maximum sentence to four years in jail. The blows of the case - in which the Association for the Defense of the Valley of the Fallen is personified - led to, after practicing the first steps , the judge accused him of damages without the aggravating hate but adding a crime against religious feelings .
Now, after the last judicial order, dated July 25, it is not surprising that Enrique Tenreiro feels victorious . "The denounced facts could be constitutive of an alleged crime against respect for the deceased", picks up the order 415/2019 of the court of first instance and instruction number 4 of San Lorenzo del Escorial, with which Judge Verónica Muñoz de Diego decides that the case continue to be processed and asks the Prosecutor and the parties to formulate their indictment against the artist from Coruña.
His conquest: the new offense of offense to respect the deceased for which the judge now investigates him - which is attributed to whom, "disrespecting due to the memory of the dead, will violate the graves or graves , desecrate a corpse or his ashes or, with the spirit of outrage, destroy, alter or damage the funeral urns, pantheons, tombstones or niches "(article 526 of the Criminal Code) - carries a significantly lower penalty, only three to five months in prison or a fine from six to 10 months.
Of course, the judge also remembers in her cars that to clean the tombstone, National Heritage used products valued at 46.48 euros and spent 276.93 euros on staff - he told a section chief, a manager, two officers and an assistant - and adds that the action of Tenreiro meant the partial closure of the basilica , so that several visitors claimed the price of the ticket they had paid and had to be returned 510 euros. Together, it calculates a figure of 833.41 euros that the artist should pay if he is convicted . [The judge, in addition, has withdrawn on condition of investigated the photojournalist who recorded the performance , Pedro Armestre, because "it is not known" that he had a "direct participation" in the events or that he previously knew what the protagonist of his video would do ].
Both when the threat of entering prison weighed on his head like now, Tenreiro keeps the claim of his gesture unalterable. He repeats it whenever he can, without regret : "I am absolutely proud, finish as the story ends."
The dictator had already been the leitmotif of a previous performance, "Franco destroys Guernica", on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the bombing that destroyed the Biscayan town in 1937. But for now he does not have in mind to undertake any other project either on him or on anyone He maintains that he is still "in a state of shock ." In any case, he insists that, in reality, he has nothing "specifically" against Franco, whose family was always very close to his.
Apart from having a grandfather on each side, a circumstance that he believes legitimizes him to launch a message of reconciliation - "we cannot be forever saying that your grandfather killed mine or mine killed yours" -, the relationship of the Tenreiro with that of the dictator dates back to years before the Civil War, when both were vacationing in the town of Pontedeume.
"The two families were well, they knew each other for a lifetime," he recalls and, taking advantage of the oral memory moved in his family, details that Franco's sister was combing her beach as a child. Years later, already in the dictatorship, hairdresser and client agreed in a notary in Betanzos. She was in a wheelchair and recognized Tenreiro Sr.: "Won't you be Monchiño, that boy I used to comb as a little boy?"
Another anecdote is in the years before the coup , when Franco was the star general of the Republic and military governor of A Coruña. Both families lived 100 meters away and had German caregivers in charge of the children. The young women were the only Germans in the city, so they used to coincide and on two or three occasions that of Tenreiro's father took him to the Franco's house. "My father was in Franco's arms when he was a child. He stroked her hair because Franco would have always liked to have a child," he says.
WITH "MOOD OF ULTRAJAR"
"I am everything but Franco," Enrique emphasizes. Although he also has "nothing in particular against Franco." "Of course Franco did good things for Spain. He threw up the economy," he says, although immediately afterwards he goes on to detail everything else: that "when the war ended, he shouldn't have retaliated, " which was "very vindictive." , which "made cheap houses and did not look for inequalities , but left part of the population softened " and that if the legitimate Government of the Republic had continued against the one who started a war "Spain would not have been left behind."
In the car that has cheered the painter of Franco's grave, the judge does not justify his change of criteria. It is limited to summarizing in just a few lines that on October 31, 2018 Enrique acted "guided by the spirit of outrage" and "lacking due respect for the memory of a deceased" upon entering the Valley of the Fallen. He explains how, taking advantage of the moment before the celebration of the Mass , the accused proceeded to "cause damage to the grave of Don Francisco Franco", arriving to write on the tombstone "For freedom" and to paint "what appeared to be a dove ", before being intercepted by the guards.
This paragraph changes the fate of the provocative artist, who does not miss the opportunity to reproach the judge for calling a dictator "Don Francisco" and to throw his suspicion that "he is a pro-Franco." The crime attributed to him seems "ridiculous"; in Germany it is forbidden to worship Adolf Hitler, he continues, and "here we have a luxury mausoleum made by slaves" and "you cannot even defame ".
The case is long. The investigating judge asked in one of her files that the Civil Guard identify "the closest direct heirs " of the dictator to offer them the possibility of taking legal action in the case. In response, Tenreiro's lawyer presented an appeal not exempt from irony in which he stated the opposite: to identify "the direct heirs of the Spaniards throughout the planet" who could have been affected "in some religious feeling" as a result of burial of Franco's remains in a temple consecrated by the Catholic Church. In addition, to facilitate the identification of their heirs, he suggested the use of the Common Trench Map of the Ministry of Justice. The judge dismissed him. Although nothing is written. The trial and sentence are still missing.
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