Spain to exhume Franco’s remains Oct 24

In this Saturday, October 5, 2019 photo, a man makes the fascist salute at the tomb of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Spanish right-wing movement La Falange, inside the basilica at the Valley of the Fallen monument near El Escorial, outside Madrid. After a tortuous judicial and public relations battle, Spain’s Socialist government has announced that Gen. Francisco Franco’s embalmed body will be relocated from a controversial shrine to a small public cemetery where the former dictator’s remains will lie along with his deceased wife. (AP Photo/Alfonso Ruiz)

MADRID — The Spanish government has said it will exhume and relocate the remains of late military dictator Gen. Francisco Franco on Thursday.

In a statement Monday, the government said the remains would be taken from the grandiose mausoleum at the Valley of the Fallen complex outside Madrid and taken to a discreet grave close to the capital by helicopter.

The procedure was authorized after the Supreme Court recently dismissed the objections by Franco’s family.

The government is pushing ahead with the exhumation before Spain holds a general election on November 10.

Franco ruled Spain between 1939 and 1975. /kga