• Tomb.Queipo de Llano, the Francoist general 'entrenched' in La Macarena
  • Republican Coordinator: The Tomb of Queipo de Llano in La Macarena, to the courts
  • The family: The three gravestones of Queipo de Llano and the three grandchildren who defend their tomb in La Macarena

The coup General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, or rather his remains, may remain in the Basilica of the Macarena of Seville without legal problems and without fear of the same fate as his superior, the dictator Francisco Franco, whose exhumation has endorsed this same week the Supreme Court of the Valley of the Fallen.

Legally, the Francoist general who took Seville and ruled it as a true viceroy , has them all with him to stay in the grave where he rests since his death, in 1951, in one of the chapels of the headquarters of the Brotherhood of Macarena, of the one who was devoted and patron and whose title of honorary elder brother holds even after he died.

A report of the legal services of the Junta de Andalucía rejects the existence of legal arguments to force the brotherhood of the Madrugá Sevillian, one of the most popular and powerful in the city, to remove the coffin of Queipo de Llano from his grave. And he holds responsible, although he does not expressly mention it, to the government presided over by Susana Díaz and who promoted and approved the current Andalusian Historical Memory Law in Parliament, in 2017, but which he never developed.

The document, to which EL MUNDO de Andalucía has had access, is signed by the lawyer of the Board Manuel Andrés Navarro, of the Legal Counsel of the Ministry of the Presidency, to which the powers in matters of historical memory were then assigned. Throughout six pages, the Board attorney describes the legal situation of the general's grave to reach a conclusion on whether or not the grave violates the law: "It is at least debatable." Even, he adds the report, in relation to the tombstone, since over the years he has lost the Francoist symbols and slogans that he originally had and now only the name of the deceased appears and a title, that of honorary elder brother of La Macarena, next to the shield of the brotherhood. No sign of yokes, arrows and military titles.

The report details that the tomb of Queipo, "leader of the military coup against the legitimate government of the Second Republic", is in a private space for public use such as the Basilica de la Macarena and responds to a request from the executive presiding over Diaz to to know exactly what their competences were in regard to the hypothetical withdrawal of said grave after several memoralist and republican groups had already pronounced demanding the transfer of the general's burial.

The lawyer, whose criterion is not binding, brings up article 32 of the Law of Historical Memory of Andalusia, which requires the removal of the elements contrary to said norm, but without specifying what elements they must gather to be considered in this way.

The law, says the author of the report after citing the opinion of the Advisory Council on the legal draft, leaves the owners the initiative at first to withdraw the elements they consider themselves contrary to the Democratic Memory. Only in the second instance, he adds, and if they do not do so voluntarily, the creation of a technical committee to determine it is contemplated.

The problem is, the legal services report also points out, that the autonomous government of the PSOE never took the step and created that technical committee or developed the law, which left a legal vacuum that, in the end, prevents any forced transfer of the tomb of Queipo de Llano.

The previous government, abundantly, could have created such a committee through an order and that it had initiated the procedure for exhumation, which in a maximum period of six months had been completed.

Sources of the current executive of the PP and Cs indicated that the Ministry of Culture and Historical Heritage is currently preparing the order that will allow the creation of the technical committee.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Andalusia
  • Seville
  • Historical memory
  • Francisco Franco Bahamonde

Justice The CGPJ will inspect the ERE court in mid-October

Health Alert "That my mother has died from previous pathologies, nobody believes it, she has died from the shredded meat"

ExhibitionThe Kings inaugurate 'The Longest Journey', the exhibition commemorating the V Centenary of the First World Tour