Franco’s remains exhumed and flown to cemetery near Madrid

The body of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco has been exhumed from the tomb in the Valley of the Fallen where it has lain since his death in 1975 and is being taken by helicopter to lie alongside that of his wife in a cemetery near Madrid.

Shortly after 10.30am local time (0930 BST) on Thursday, the Spanish government announced the operation to move his body was under way.

Twenty-two members of the Franco family gathered in the basilica, along with Spain’s justice minister, Dolores Delgado, in her role as first notary of the kingdom.

A canopy was erected to cover the grave and guard against any attempts to film the exhumation, and those present were checked for electronic devices to make sure there were no images or sound recordings.

The 1.5-tonne slab that covered the tomb was lifted and the coffin brought up. Although the zinc-lined casket had deteriorated, the family chose not to transfer the remains to a new one.

The body was blessed by the Benedictine abbot of the basilica and the coffin brought out of the church’s entrance just before 1pm on the shoulders of eight of his descendants. It was swathed in cloth and topped with a huge wreath.

As they lowered the coffin into the hearse that would take the body to a waiting air force helicopter, family members shouted: “¡Viva España!”

A private family service will be held inside the Franco mausoleum at Mingorrubio-El Pardo municipal cemetery, where the dictator’s widow, Carmen Polo, was buried after her death in 1988.

Franco’s remains have had pride of place in the basilica, which is 40 miles (64km) north-west of Madrid, since his death.

Although the Valley of the Fallen and its 150-metre (490ft) cross ostensibly commemorate all those killed in the Spanish civil war, for many people it serves only to glorify Franco and his nearly four-decade dictatorship.

The government said his remains needed to be moved as they could no longer “remain in a public mausoleum that exalts his figure”, adding that the removal would “symbolically close the circle of Spanish democracy”.

After months of appeals and legal arguments, Spain’s supreme court gave permission for the exhumation at the end of September.