SPAIN RESUMES CONTROVERSIAL EXHUMATIONS NEAR FRANCO'S TOMB

MADRID Work resumed Monday to exhume the remains of four Spanish Civil War victims from a divisive mausoleum for late dictator Francisco Franco, Spanish heritage authorities said, a step that could open the door for many other similar requests in the future.

The four are believed to lie in crypts within the Valley of the Fallen, a controversial neoclassical mausoleum northwest of Madrid where more than 33,000 victims from both sides of the 19361939 war are buried alongside Franco’s remains.

Franco presented the grandiose complex as a symbol for national reconciliation, but victims’ relatives and activists have campaigned against it because forced labour was used in its construction and because it pays homage to the dictator who ruled Spain until his death in 1975.