A police vehicle passes a sign informing visitors that the 'Valley of the Fallen' monument, now known as Valley of Cuelgamuros, is closed to the general public as forensic scientists begin work to remove the remains of 128 victims of the Spanish Civil War who are buried at the site, near Madrid, Spain, June 12, 2023. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura/File Photo
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's High Court on Monday ordered a temporary stop to exhumations of Spanish Civil War victims from a Francoist mausoleum after the granddaughter of one victim said the disinterment work could lead to the desecration of her ancestor's remains.
The exhumations are the first involving people whose bodies were moved from other parts of Spain after the 1936-1939 war and reburied without their families' consent in a sprawling monument built by dictator Francisco Franco in the Valley of Cuelgamuros, 50km (31 miles) northwest of Madrid.
The woman, who requested the preliminary injunction in a suit filed by a group of Christian lawyers, said the exhumations violated her right to give her grandmother, who was executed in 1936, a dignified burial. The woman has remained anonymous and has not spoken to media.
According to court documents seen by Reuters, the judge granted the injunction based on the right to religious freedom, and ordered that the exhumations be frozen until a "deeper understanding of the situation" could be gained.
The court gave the state-run National Heritage agency, which manages the site, three days to make its case, after which it will decide whether to lift, keep or modify the injunction.
The crypts of the granite-hewn basilica overlooking the Valley of Cuelgamuros contain the remains of some 34,000 people - many of them victims of Franco's regime - who were buried anonymously there.
Relatives have been fighting for years to give their loved ones a burial under their own names and near their families.
Following multiple delays and legal battles, forensic scientists in June began exhuming 128 bodies from the basilica's crypt, seven years after a court approved the work.
Eduardo Ranz, the attorney who led the fight to exhume the victims, told Reuters that invoking religious liberty was "an opinion but not legal grounds" to stop the exhumations.
He added that it had yet to be proven that the rights of the victim concerned, who he said was buried 200 metres (656 ft) away from the crypt where the exhumations were taking place, could be violated.
(Reporting by David Latona and Inti Landauro; Editing by Charlie Devereux)
