The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal presented by the Association for the Defense of the Valley of the Fallen against the acquittal of a man who painted a red peace dove and the text “For Freedom” over in October 2018. Criminal Chamber has confirmed the judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) that, in turn, ratified the one issued by the Madrid Court that acquitted the accused of crimes against freedom of conscience and desecration and damages in grave. For the high court, that conclusion was “reasonable and motivated.”
The dictator’s remains on October 24, 2019. A year earlier, on October 31, 2018, a man entered the Basilica of the Valley of the Fallen around 10.55, painted a dove, wrote “for freedom” and shouted: “For the reconciliation of the Spaniards!” The man entered the temple when the mass scheduled for 11.00 had not yet begun and, according to the judges, “without being intended to interrupt her, but to make expression of her ideas about the presence” of Franco’s tomb In that place. The resolution adds that at that time the children of the Escolanía were coming out on a side, but the defendant did not notice his presence, or the priests, who had not yet reached the altar.
The Supreme Court, in a sentence of which magistrate Ángel Hurtado, instructor to dismiss all the reasons for the appeal of the Association for the Defense of the Valley of the Fallen, who intended the Supreme Court, to modify the proven facts to establish that the Man made the painted when he was beginning the Mass and “with the intention of offending the memory of the deceased Francisco Franco passing over the religious feelings of the people present there and of all those who were going to celebrate the Mass.” The Court rejects this change and, collecting what is alleged by the Fiscal Ministry, concludes that it cannot be affirmed that the action of the accused man prevented the exercise of religious freedom of those who could attend the Basilica for a celebration that had not yet begun.
