• Spain, the supreme court blocks the exhumation of Franco's remains
  • Spain. The remains of General Franco will be resurrected in June. He will rest next to his wife

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24 September 2019The six judges of the Spanish Supreme Court have unanimously authorized the exhumation of the mortal remains of the dictator Francisco Franco from the Cuelgamuros basilica of Valle de los Caídos to give a new burial in the cemetery of El Pardo-Mingorrubio which is located in the north-west of Madrid.

The sentence goes against the wishes of the relatives of the Spanish dictator who died in 1975 in Madrid, who wanted to take his body to the crypt of the Almudena cathedral, the main place of Catholic worship in the center of Madrid. In Almudena, Franco's daughter had long ago bought a burial space.

The sentence therefore rejects the appeal of the grandchildren and supports, more than a year later, the Executive of the president Pedro Sánchez who had proposed to bury the remains in the cemetery of El Pardo-Mingorrubio (where there are also the remains of his wife di Franco, Carmen Polo) for security reasons. The move was scheduled for last June 10 but then the Constitutional Court blocked everything.

Now the last obstacle will be the number 3 judge of Madrid, José Yusty Bastarreche, who will have to decide whether to maintain the urgent precautionary measures he put on the lifting of the slab that covers the tomb. His sentence had halted the exhumation of Franco's remains and had arrived after the lawsuit brought by Leonardo Falcó Rodríguez, close to the family environment of the former Spanish dictator.

The ruling of the Supreme Court arrived the day after the dissolution of the Cortes (House and Senate) which through article 99 paragraph 5 leads to the elections of next November 10th. Precisely for this date the PSOE would like to move the Francoist tomb.