The Prosecutor's Office opposes paralyzing the exhumations of the Cuelgamuros Valley

The Prosecutor's Office has opposed the stoppage of the exhumations of victims of the Civil War and the Dictatorship that are being carried out in the Cuelgamuros Valley and which had been demanded by the Association for the Defense of the Valley of the Fallen.

According to the Public Ministry, the position has been adopted by the Prosecutor's Office of the National Court “in coordination with the Specialized Unit on Human Rights and Democratic Memory” directed by the former minister and former attorney general Dolores Delgado.

Following a lawsuit from the association, on July 12 the prosecutor opposed the precautionary suspension of the exhumations, which was finally denied by the Central Administrative Litigation Court No. 5 of the National Court.

Now the association has appealed the judge's decision, an appeal that the Public Prosecutor's Office has opposed.. Likewise, the Prosecutor's Office has asked the magistrate not to admit the claim made by the association, based on the lack of legitimacy to do so and on the fact that the contested act is not challengeable.

The Public Prosecutor's Office has alleged that the suspension of the exhumation proceedings would in itself generate “evident damage to the victims' right to truth and reparation” and, specifically, “to the fulfillment of the Public Administration's duty to proceed to the location, exhumation and identification of missing persons” established by the Democratic Memory Law, in force since last year.

The action of the Democratic Memory Prosecutor's Office joins other recent actions such as supporting that, despite the amnesty law, the attacks reported by a trade unionist after being arrested in Barcelona in 1970 be investigated by criminal means.. The prosecutor in the case had initially opposed opening the investigation, but Delgado intervened to force a change of opinion.