The remains of late Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who ruled the country from 1939 until his death in 1975, were exhumed on Thursday from the tomb in the Valley of the Fallen and taken by helicopter to be reburied at the family tomb at the Mingorrubio El Pardo cemetery, located in the area north of Madrid
MADRID (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th October, 2019) The remains of late Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who ruled the country from 1939 until his death in 1975, were exhumed on Thursday from the tomb in the Valley of the Fallen and taken by helicopter to be reburied at the family tomb at the Mingorrubio El Pardo cemetery, located in the area north of Madrid.The exhumation ceremony was attended by the dictators's relatives grandchildren, their wives and great grand-children a total of 22 people. Additionally, acting Minister of Justice Dolores Delgado, several government officials and a medical examiner were also present. The priest, Santiago Cantera, who had opposed the reburial, uttered a prayer.
Relatives carried the coffin from the basilica on their shoulders and loaded it into a helicopter for further transfer to the Mingorrubio El Pardo cemetery.
The exhumation was one of the first decisions Pedro Sanchez's socialist government made after coming to power in June 2018. In August of that year, the government adopted a decree that amended the 2007 law on historical memory to say that the Valley of the Fallen memorial monument should only house the remains of people who died in the Spanish Civil War and not those of the late dictator, whose government oversaw thousands of executions.
The Franco family opposed the measure and proposed, as the only alternative, that the remains be moved to the crypt of Madrid's Almudena Cathedral, where the dictator's daughter and son-in-law are buried. The authorities refused this option and decided to rebury Franco at the El Pardo cemetery alongside his late wife.
