SPANISH JUSTICE
was shocked to read in the Times of Novem- ber 14 the statement issued by the Spanish Ministry of Justice, in reply to the group of foreign lawyers who have recently visited Madrid. 1. The Ministry of Justice denies that an appeal for amnesty has been signed by outstanding Spanish personalities. I have a photographic copy of the appeal. In this copy are easily read eighty-two signs' tures, beginning with some of the first intellectual personalities in Spain (I give some of these in a post- script). I suggest that the foreign correspondents in Madrid go and ask the Ministry whether the door mcnt is authentic or not; I know most of them per- sonally, and I am confident that they will continn that they signed the appeal,
2. The Ministry of Justice states that the last person in prison in connection with the Civil War Was released in 1944. When I was in prison in Madrid after the political trials of 1956, I remember two persons being tried and condemned in connection With the Civil War. One of them, Elviro Ferret, was sentenced to death, although this penalty was after- wards changed to thirty years and one day imprison- ment. (Mr. Ferret must be, if he is still alive, in the prison for old people, over sixty, in Malaga.) The other, Jose Luis Fernandez Albert, a former mem- ber of the Spanish Navy and a hero of the French Resistance, was condemned to several years' im- prisonment: he is now in Burgos prison.—Yours faithfully,
VICENTE GIRBAU LEON
37 Gordon Mansions, Torrington Place. IVC1 P ■.--Among the signatures in the above-mentioned document are the following : Raman Menendez Pedal, President of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language; Julio. Casares, Secretary of the k°Yal Academy of the Spanish Language; Ramon Perez de Ayala, novelist and former Ambassador of Spain to London; Pedro Lain Entralgo, Rector of the University of Madrid until 1956: Gregorio Marafidn, the well-known doctor, historian and humanist, mem- ber of the Royal Academies of Medicine, History, Arts and Language; Julio Palacios. the well-known
Sete Azorin, the dean of the Spanish writers.
The following university professors among others: Valentin Andres Alvdres, Damaso Alonso, Jose Luis Ara tiguren, Gonzalo Lafora, Jose Luis Diez del Corral, Enrique Gomez Arboleya, Eugenio Cuello Sal m, Jose Castafieda Chornet, Father Jose Toledo, Father Eloy Montero, Antonio de Luna, Ursicino Alvarez, Manuel Terdn, Enrique Tierno Galvin, Luis Garcia de Valdeavellano, Rafael Lapesa, Jose Marfa N a 'arm, Juan Sardd. Other well-known personalities linucilude: General Alfredo Kindeldn, the philosopher Marias, the film director Juan Antonio Bar- deni% and the poets and novelists Edgar Neville, Cam& Jose Cela, Gabriel Celaya, Vicente Aleix- endre, Vicente Garcia de Dieho, Dionisio Ridruejo, Jos: Hierro, etc. According to my information more than 400 persons signed in Madrid alone.
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