Court approves exhumation of Franco’s remains

MADRID: Spain’s Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the green light for the government to remove the remains of Francisco Franco from a grandiose state mausoleum, rejecting an appeal against it by the late dictator’s descendants. In a unanimous ruling, the court decided “to completely reject the appeal lodged by the family in relation to Francisco Franco’s exhumation,” the judges wrote. Franco, who ruled with an iron fist following the end of the 1936-39 civil war, is buried in an imposing basilica carved into a mountain in the Valley of the Fallen, 50 kilometres (30 miles) outside Madrid.