• LUIS F. DURÁN

  • ANA MARÍA ORTIZ

    @Anamaortiz

  • RAFAEL J. ÁLVAREZ

    Madrid

Thursday, October 24, 2019 - 02:01

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  • Chronology. Franco's exhumation: the key dates

Extreme security, not a photo out of control and a family entourage with no option to receive acts of support. Thus the Government wants the historic day today, the day Francisco Franco will be exhumed from the Valley of the Fallen and buried in the cemetery of El Pardo-Mingorrubio .

The 22 descendants of the dictator, the operators who will remove the coffin and the other assistants must pass through a scanner to avoid introducing any device that could record the opening of the grave. There will only be one exception: two mobile phones, one in direct line with the Presidency and the other with the rest of the Government, in case there are incidents to communicate to Pedro Sánchez and his team.

43 years and 335 days later, Franco will be exhumed from the Valley of the Fallen and buried in El Pardo in a huge operation tested and controlled to the full that involves Ministries , Police, Civil Guard, Air Force and up to 500 journalists from 17 countries , some as far away as Turkey or Qatar .

The media must collect their accreditation at 5.00 hours in La Moncloa and will be taken to Cuelgamuros in buses to continue the exhumation at the entrance of the enclosure, 6 kilometers from Franco's tomb. Only four photographers of Efe and a TVE team, which will facilitate the images to the rest of the media, will be able to access the esplanade but not the Basilica .

The police device includes an anti-drone system and three safety rings around the Mingorubian cemetery. There will be a first police control on the perimeter of one kilometer around the cemetery; a second, already fenced, 100 meters that can only be crossed by those who are accredited and a third at the same door. In Mingorrubio alone, 100 agents of the National and Municipal Police will be deployed.

Yesterday, Underground Police officers worked in the cemetery while several dogs tracked nearby, taken by the police and newspaper, but with hardly any neighborhood expectations.

Access to the Valley of the Fallen is closed to the public since October 11 and the Civil Guard prevents Benedictine monks guarding the Abbey , contrary to exhumation, to access Franco's grave "in case they perform any sabotage," according to This newspaper has learned from police sources. The prior of the Valley, Santiago Cantera - who will officiate a Mass in Mingorrubio together with the priest Ramón Tejero , son of the coup player Antonio Tejero -, denounced Monday at the controls of the Civil Guard and the Delegation of the Government of Madrid for the prohibition of entering the Basilica and accused them of "unconscious access". And he has complained to the Pope and the Spanish ecclesiastical hierarchy because in the preparations "the inviolability of the Abbey is not being respected," he said yesterday.

The encapsulation of the operation - the helicopter is preferred to the car to avoid tributes or incidents during the transfer - had another chapter yesterday when the Government Delegation banned the two concentrations of the Franco Foundation and the Historical Roots Memory Association at the gates of the cemetery before the possibility of "serious problems of public order". The two extreme right groups had called "to pray for the soul" of the dictator. "It was to give dignity to the execrable act of desecration, but they have not allowed it," said General Juan Chicarro , president of the Franco Foundation yesterday.

The police report indicates that "nothing prevents" holding these acts in another place, but that in the immediate vicinity of the cemetery could meet "antagonistic groups" that cause a "direct confrontation" and even the possibility of impeding the passage of the funeral entourage.

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  • Franco exhumation
  • Francisco Franco Bahamonde
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