Franco’s heirs in eviction fight

SPANISH police have been posted outside the former summer palace of dictator Franciso Franco as a court yesterday ordered an inventory of the property amid allegations the family plans to strip it as they comply with an eviction order.

The A Coruña court, which earlier this year ruled that the family return the property to the state, issued the ruling after newspaper reports that the dictator’s grandchildren were planning to fill up to 50 removal vans with goods.

Aside from paintings by Spanish masters such as Zuloaga, valuable glassware, tapestries and hunting trophies, the Pazo de Meirás’s most controversial contents are two 12th-century statues of the prophets Isaac and Abraham.

Local authorities are fighting in the courts for the statues to be returned to their original setting in Santiago de Compostela cathedral.

Local police have been ordered to watch the entrance to the 16-acre property near the town of Sada on the northern coast of the region of Galicia.

“We must have knowledge, not only of the Pazo but also of its contents, in order to follow the letter of the law with regard to a property we believe to be of public ownership,” Carmen Calvo, Spain’s first deputy prime minister, said.

The dictator’s grandchildren have appealed against the court’s September ruling that General Franco was never the lawful owner of the mansion.

The Telegraph asked the Franco family lawyer to confirm the heirs’ plans but received no immediate reply.

Benito Portela, Sada’s mayor, believes the building should be turned into a centre for the recovery of histori cal memory about t he Franco era.