Spain begins relocating remains of late dictator Franco

Spanish authorities are flying the coffin carrying the remains of Spanish dictator Gen. Francisco Franco by helicopter to a new burial site following their exhumation from his grandiose mausoleum outside Madrid.

The government-ordered operation is a momentous event for Spain and satisfies a decades-old desire of many in Spain who considered the vainglorious mausoleum that Franco built an affront to the tens of thousands who died in Spain’s Civil War and his subsequent regime and to Spain’s standing as a modern democratic state.

The remains are to be taken to the Mingorrubio cemetery a 57-kilometer (35-mile) drive away, where Franco’s wife is buried.

The coffin was draped with a red cloth bearing the Franco family emblem and a wreath of laurel leaves with a Spanish flag ribbon top.

— AP