FEDERICO García Lorca’s family’s insistence on the writer’s remains being left in his anonymous common grave has caused heavy criticisms from historians.

Emilio Silva, president of the Association for the Recuperation of Historic Memory (ARMH), slammed the ‘media circus’ that the poet and playwright’s descendents have created.

“His family, who said they did not want to turn this issue into a media circus, have done just that,” stated Silva.

Federico García Lorca was assassinated during the Civil War and buried in an unmarked common grave in Alfacar (Granada).

Recently, authorities decided to exhume the bodies from the grave in order that the emblematic writer could be laid to rest properly with a headstone, and his violent death investigated.

But his great-nieces and nephews wrote an open letter via their lawyer, running into several pages, saying they did not want his remains disturbed.

Later, however, they agreed to the exhumation ‘but with restrictions’.

“This is something that could have been sorted out years ago,” complains Silva.

He calls the exhuming of García Lorca ‘a duty’.

“A crime occurred, and I believe it should be investigated.

“In any case, forensics are currently examining the remains of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara in Chile, and nobody has argued about it.”