Monday, March 13, 2023, 12:23 p.m.
The Supreme Court endorses the exhumation of the remains of the victims of the Civil War buried in the Valley of the Fallen, the monumental enclosure with a mausoleum included that Francisco Franco ordered to be built by Republican prisoners at the end of the war. It is estimated that more than 33,000 victims lie in the catacombs of the basilica, from both sides.
The high court rejects the appeal presented by the Association for Reconciliation and Historical Truth – first cousin of the Francisco Franco Foundation – for which the lack of an urban planning license was alleged. Specifically, it was claimed that the recovery of the skeletal remains deposited in the Valley of the Fallen was suspended, arguing that it would endanger the structure of the basilica itself. The justice of Madrid has already given the go-ahead to the exhumations in the past but until now the San Lorenzo de El Escorial City Council, in the hands of the PP in a Vox coalition, delayed the granting of a building permit, until finally the mayoress was accused of prevarication.
The Supreme Court’s decision comes years after the petition by the family of the brothers Manuel and Antonio Ramiro Lapeña to recover their remains. Both were shot by the national side in Calatayud (Zaragoza) in August and October 1936 and their remains transferred in 1959 to the Valley of the Fallen, renamed by the Government of Pedro Sánchez as Cuelgamuros. The Supreme Court does not go into the merits of the matter, but it does reject the appeal that the Association for Reconciliation and Historical Truth filed at the time for “failure to meet the requirements for lack of sufficient grounds and without having been duly justified and with precisely the presumption incorporated into the precept to enforce it in the court of appeal”. The Supreme Court’s car opens the door to thousands of exhumations in Cuelgamuros..
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