The ownership of Pazo Meirás (Sada, A Coruña), the last great icon of Franco's power, has already been elucidated in court. In the Court of First Instance number 1 of A Coruña, the trial derived from the lawsuit started a year ago, in July 2019, by the State to demand its return to public assets and the Dictator's family has put all the meat on Monday. on the spit to defend that he must continue on behalf of his six grandchildren. In a script twist to which they had not resorted until now, they have mentioned the former Galician president and former minister of the Dictatorship Manuel Fraga, whom they assure that he refused to help them with public funds in their rehabilitation.

In the first of the four oral sessions scheduled at the former headquarters of the Provincial Court of A Coruña, all the cards were already placed on the table. The State Bar and the administrations adhering to the lawsuit -Gunta de Galicia, Diputación de A Coruña and municipalities of Sada and A Coruña- delved that the Pazo was acquired in a "fraudulent" way and has received public funds even after the death of the Dictator while the family defended the legal purchase process and that they have always been in charge of supporting it.

Fraga enters this plot line. It was introduced by Fernando Quiroga Piñeiro, father-in-law of Arancha Martínez-Bordiú, one of the Dictator's six grandchildren and a friend of her late daughter, Carmen Franco. With 88 years and hearing problems, she gave signs of a very good memory and detailed year after year the process of rehabilitation of the Pazo de Meirás after its fire and partial destruction in 1978, in which she assured that the Franco family "absolutely" received

In 1990, twelve years after the fire, Quiroga tried to convince Carmen Franco to recover the Pazo "because it was the history of Spain", but she rejected it as economically "expensive" and technically "complicated" and encouraged him to go see Fraga , who at that time was president of the Xunta de Galicia (he was between 1990 and 2005). He went to his hometown, Vilalba (Lugo), to see him, but he refused help. "He told me that it was not possible to collaborate in the reconstruction of the Pazo."

That rehabilitation was made from 1998, two years after Quiroga's son and Carmen Franco's daughter married in the gardens of the Pazo. It was "an effort for the family" of some 100 million pesetas because, according to this witness, there was a lot of work to be done on the property, in which, during the dictatorship years, hardly any arrangements had been made. "They did not take advantage of the Headquarters of the State, so to speak, to leave that as a palace," he assured.

Sustained with public funds

This testimony, from a witness that the plaintiffs tried to fail because of their family relationship with the defendants, was, in reality, almost a single verse in the middle of the trial. The former mayor of Sada for the AP, the PP and the Sada Popular Democratic Party between 1979 and 2007, Ramón Rodríguez Ares, defended that the Franco are the legitimate owners ("there is talk of recovery, but one thing to recover must have been before someone and that was always private property "), but their impartiality was equally questioned, and the rest of the witnesses confirmed that the Pazo received public funds both during Franco's life and after the dictatorship.

The lawsuit maintains that the Pazo came to the family through a "fraudulent" and "simulated" process, since it was acquired through a popular matter in which in 1938 all the residents of the area were forced to contribute money and in 1941 the dictator formalized a "false sale" to buy it back for a lower price. He had paid 406,346.20 pesetas to his legitimate owners until then, the heirs of Emilia Pardo Bazán, and he paid the "derisory" price of 85,000 pesetas.

Furthermore, they allege the "clearly official and public nature of the Pazo de Meirás", since from 1938 to 1975 it was the official summer residence of the Head of State and its ordinary expenses were covered by public funds. This Monday, at the trial, an official from the municipality of Coruña confirmed that in the 60s and 70s, for example, every July and August the Firefighters supplied water without the family paying and that the Works and Gardens services of this administration were They "habitually" transferred to the Pazo to perform services.

Two residents of Meirás reported that the presence of these city council personnel was frequent, and a retired civil guard confirmed that he served as a gardener in the Pazo de Meirás between 1982 and 1990 while collecting from the State.

The victims

Juan Pérez Babío, grandson of Josefa Portela, expropriated to be able to expand the Meirás estate, and who has lived all his life in front of the Pazo, was this Monday the voice of the victims of the Franco action in the courtroom. He recalled that his grandmother told him "with great pain" about the process, that they made several visits for him to sell and in the end "they ended up pressing him", a situation that "marked him for his whole life".

"I always saw her as a deeply sad person who did not want to talk about it. She had been expelled," he said. Widowed and with two children at the front in 1938, when her property was expropriated, "the world fell on her" when "she was expelled." In the case of this woman, she was paid for the property.

Again breaks into campaign

The legal battle against the Franco family has again erupted in an electoral campaign. If the acting government of Pedro Sánchez exhumed the remains of the dictator of the Valle de los caídos in the pre-campaign for the November generals, now the trial of the State Advocacy for Meirás breaks into the campaign for the autonomies of July 12. Coinciding with the start of the trial, the Galician Initiative for Memory, the Commission for the Recovery of the Historical Memory of A Coruña and the 19 of Meirás demonstrated at the gates of the judicial building and leaders of the BNG and Galicia in Common also approached -the Podemos alliance-.

Also the deputy delegate of the Government in A Coruña, Pilar López-Rioboo (PSOE), came to the hearing to claim that the procedure for the recovery of the Manor meets a commitment of the Government with historical memory and showed her confidence that the judicial procedure concludes with the recovery of this building for public heritage.

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