Antonio Ortega, former Real Madrid president executed in 1939, to be exhumed in Alicante | OneFootball

Antonio Ortega, former Real Madrid president during the Civil War, is to be exhumed from grave IX at Alicante’s municipal cemetery in a project led by Aspe council. He was executed by garrote vil on 15 July 1939 at the age of 51, and is not listed as a president on the club’s official website.

“Regardless of whether his remains are handed to his family, which is the aim, we would like Real Madrid to recognise him as president,” said Aspe mayor Antonio Puerto, speaking to Efe. He added that funding has been secured to begin work in August or earlier.

Ortega served as Madrid Football Club president from 1937 to 1938, when the ‘Real’ title had been removed by King Alfonso XIII. He also coached the team, was civil governor of Guipúzcoa and led a battalion of antifascist Basque militias.

During the war he was director general of Security under Juan Negrín, and historian Hugh Thomas says he joined the Communist Party in 1937. He rose to colonel in the Republican Army, was captured in Alicante after trying to flee abroad, and passed through Los Almendros, Albatera and the castle of Santa Bárbara before his execution. His body was interred in a common grave at the cemetery.

Work on the site began in March 2022, but the contractor withdrew despite a 20% increase after discovering later burials above the Civil War victims, which drove up costs.

Following a February meeting with state officials and victims’ representatives, the project for plot 19 was approved with 3,000 euros from the Generalitat Valenciana. The Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory will provide a further 50,000 euros for exhumation, and DNA testing will be funded by the Basque Government through the Instituto de Memoria y Convivencia de los Derechos Humanos.

Grave IX contains the remains of 52 people executed between May and August 1939 after the fall of the Republic, and the exhumation is being promoted by Aspe with the municipalities of Novelda and La Romana.

Source: El Periódico Mediterráneo