Lorca’s body to be exhumed

Spain's attempts to come to terms with the atrocities that occurred under General Franco's 36-year reign is to result in the exhumation of the remains of the poet Federico Garcia Lorca (pictured), who was shot dead at the age of 39 for being a leftist and homosexual at the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.

On Thursday, Judge Baltasar Garzon authorised the opening of all the graves containing remains of the victims of Franco, including the one in which Lorca is thought to lie in Viznar near Granada. This is not because there is any doubt about how Lorca was killed - there are no calls for a post-mortem to be carried out - but because the families of the two people executed at the same time and who had their bodies thrown in with the poet’s wish to give them dignified burials.

For years, Lorca's surviving relatives have opposed the opening of the grave, but recently said it had no objections. The move follows a ruling passed by Spain's Socialist government called the Law of Historic Memory, which seeks to offer some justice to Franco's victims by granting them official recognition. It also includes a provision that allows the removal of Francoist monuments, and pledges some support to associations that have dug up the remains of some 4,000 people from mass graves.