Judge Orders Exhumations From Franco Basilica

A judge investigating the human rights crimes of dictator Francisco Franco has ordered the exhumation of bodies from Spain's most controversial monument, the underground basilica and mausoleum known as the Valley of the Fallen.

In a new move in his investigation into abuses committed by Franco's regime, Baltasar Garzón has ordered the exhumation of eight corpses which lie inside the warren of niches at the mausoleum 36 miles north-west of Madrid.

The bones of some 40,000 people who died during the Spanish civil war were deposited there after Franco's favorite monument, topped by a 150-meter high granite cross, was finished in 1958.

Relatives of the eight men said their corpses had originally been thrown into a well near their home village of Pajares de Adaja, in central Spain, by members of a Francoist death squad in 1936. More than 20 years later their bones were taken to the Valley of the Fallen.

"We are going to recover my father, my uncle and six others who were executed," said Fausto Canales, 74.

Canales said Franco had "stolen" the bones of his father, Valerico, and his uncle Fidel to ensure that some Republican enemies were buried alongside his supporters at the Valley of the Fallen.

Judge Garzón has ordered the opening of 19 other Franco-era mass graves, though state attorneys yesterday asked for those exhumations to be suspended until a higher court decided whether he had overstepped his powers.

Campaigners said the judge's order opened the way for the removal of thousands more bodies from a basilica built over 18 years with the help of forced labor battalions of political prisoners.

Most bodies were placed in niches hidden behind the walls. Only Franco himself and the leader of the extreme rightwing Falange party, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, have graves inside the basilica.

Hundreds of Franco supporters come here for a special mass every year on the anniversary of his death in 1975.

Franco also built a Benedictine monastery beside the basilica. "The bodies used to arrive at night in lorries. We would pray for them in the morning and we continue to do so," the abbot, Anselmo Álvarez, told El País yesterday.