Read in Catalan

The grandson of dictator Francisco Franco, José Cristóbal Martínez-Bordiú Franco, has sent the Spanish prime minister a burofax, a form of registered fax sent from a post office. In it, he threatens Pedro Sánchez with civil and criminal legal proceedings for having approved the decree to exhume the general's remains without demonstrating it to be urgent.

According to ElDiario.es, the letter was sent on 23rd August, the day before the cabinet gave the go ahead to the executive order. Franco's grandson, in the name of the Francisco Franco Foundation, threatens to present a lawsuit, arguing that the measure implies crimes of "malfeasance, desecration of a tomb located in a place of worship and abuse of power".

"On behalf of the National Francisco Franco Foundation, we inform you, in case it's gone unnoticed, that this approval contravenes article 86 of the Constitution due to a complete lack of the enabling condition of extraordinary and urgent necessity, and could constitute, among others, a crime of malfeasance and abuse of power, without prejudicing the possible commission of a crime of desecrating a tomb located in a place of worship, inviolable, in accordance with the international treaty with the Holy See of 1979," he writes.