The heirs of the Spanish dictator Franco were, this Thursday, forced to return the Paço de Meirás, in Galicia, to the Spanish State to fulfill the judicial sentence that granted the mansion to public property. The property has been in the general’s family for 82 years.
The process, which ended at 3 pm, started about an hour and a half late because the Heritage technicians had to visually check the condition of the goods before handing over the keys, reports the Spanish newspaper “El País”.
Two of the assets present in the inventory of 697 items that the Franco family could not remove from the place, the Casa das Conchas and an annex to this property, were not part of what was claimed by the State, so they will remain in the hands of the dictator’s heirs.
“The content of Paço de Meirás will continue as it is today in the hope that there will be a firm sentence,” explained Consuelo Castro Rey, head of the State’s Attorney, who underlined the feeling of “historic justice” of this act.
“It is the return of a good that reaches the hands where it should never have left,” he added.
The judicial commission was received at the door of the property by several activists from the Galician Nationalist Bloc who chanted phrases with “the Palace is of the people”, “give us back what was stolen” and “Francoism never again”.
The order issued by the court of First Instance of A Coruña underlined that the experts had to search the gardens and all the divisions of the Palace “to verify that the goods were in the same state as they were in when the inspection of 11 November was carried out”.
After the inspection, the Paço keys were handed over to the General Administration of the State, which has, as of this Thursday, 20 working days to determine which goods can be delivered to the Franco family.
The Palace will reopen in five or six weeks.
– .
:quality(80)/cdn-kiosk-api.telegraaf.nl/074f1a22-3b2c-11eb-97f7-02d1dbdc35d1.jpg "Mayor of Aalsmeer: Polish supermarket remains closed | Inland")