MADRID, October 24. /TASS/. Experts have exhumed on Thursday the remains of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco (1892-1975) who was buried in the Valley of the Fallen memorial near Madrid, the Spanish government said.

"The coffin has been exhumed," the cabinet of ministers said. The exhumation process began around 10:30 am local time. A granite slab weighing 1.5 tonnes that was covering the tomb was lifted to bring up the coffin, 44 years after the dictator was buried.

Spanish authorities banned use of mobile devices in the course of exhumation. Moreover, all those attending the procedure had to go through a metal detector, while journalists were barred from the exhumation. The government is estimated to fork out around 63.000 euros to move the remains.

Franco’s coffin is soon expected to be brought on a helicopter to Mingorrubio-El Pardo cemetery, where the dictator will be reburied and a private ceremony will be held. Franco’s twenty-two relatives were allowed to attend the service. Franco will be buried in the same mausoleum where his wife Carmen Polo was interred in 1988.

Franco’s exhumation was one of the first key initiatives put forward by Spain’s socialist government almost immediately after they took power in summer 2018. To this end, the government adopted an executive order envisioning certain changes to be introduced in the law on historic memory. Franco’s family insisted that the remains be removed to the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid. However, Spain’s cabinet opposed this idea from the start because the authorities believed that such a step could lead to public unrest.

Francisco Franco ruled Spain in 1939-1975. He died at the age of 82 of a heart attack in a Madrid hospital. The memorial where the dictator is buried began to be constructed in 1940 at his own order as a monument to all the fallen in the civil war. The Valley of the Fallen was built by prisoners and was completed in 1958.