MADRID , Spain ( CNN ) -- The world may soon know for sure where Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca rests after fascists executed him in 1936 during Spain 's Civil War . A team from the Andalucia Geophysics Institut at work in the Federico Garcia Lorca Park , Spain . Officials in southern Spain Friday cleared the last legal hurdle to permit exhuming a mass grave site in a village near Granada where Lorca and some other Civil War victims are thought to be buried , CNN partner station CNN+ reported . The area has been fenced off for weeks as scientists conducted preparatory work . Next Monday ( October 19 ) they are due to erect a large tent over the site so that exhumation can be conducted confidentially , said Andalusia regional government justice councilor Begona Alvarez , CNN+ reported from Granada . The potential exhumation of Lorca is part of a broader effort in Spain that already has resulted in various mass graves being dug up and could lead to thousands of other Spaniards still thought to be in mass graves . Many were killed by right-wing forces loyal to General Francisco Franco , who won the three-year long Civil War , which began in 1936 . Franco went on to rule Spain with an iron fist until his death in 1975 . For years , Lorca descendants have argued that Lorca -- whose poems and plays are widely studied at universities , including his `` Poet in New York '' -- should not be exhumed , mainly so that he would not be seen as more important than the many other Civil War victims thought to be in nearby mass graves . In a statement earlier this month , Lorca descendants noted the complexity of the issue , because relatives of some others thought to be in the gravesite have requested their removal , identification , and permission to bury their remains in hometown cemeteries . In their October 2 statement , six Lorca descendants reiterated their request that Lorca 's presumed remains not be disturbed . But they also reserved the right to have them identified in the future , and they asked authorities to designate the current mass grave site as a legally defined resting place . It is already a park , in the village of Alfacar , because that 's where it 's long been thought that Lorca , captured by Franco loyalists early in the Civil War , was shot dead , according to historians who interviewed witnesses and local villagers . Relatives of a bullfighter , Francisco Galadi , a tax inspector , Fermin Roldan and a restaurant owner , Miguel Cobo , have asked authorities to identify their remains , officials said . But in the case of teacher Dioscoro Galindo , also executed and thought to be in the mass grave , two of his nieces are at odds over whether to exhume him or not , so officials will not act until that family reaches a common position , CNN+ reported . Irish author Ian Gibson , who is a leading scholar on Lorca , told CNN last year , `` Lorca is the most famous victim of the Civil War . I think Lorca can be a symbol for reconciliation of the Civil War . '' Spanish parliament in 2007 , led by the Socialist government , passed a law condemning Franco 's dictatorship and calling on town halls to fund initiatives to unearth mass graves . It also sought to honor Roman Catholic clergy and others executed by the losing side in the war , the forces loyal to the leftist Republican government . Since then , some prominent statutes of Franco have been removed from public view , but others remain , along with numerous streets in Spain named for Franco or his top generals . More recently , there have been efforts to try to exhume presumed Franco victims from a mass grave at his large mausoleum site , the Valley of the Fallen , just outside of Madrid , where Franco himself is buried .
Resting place of Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca may soon be known . Legal clearance been granted permitting exhumation of mass grave near Granada . Score: 6 Thousands of Spaniards killed in the civil war still thought to be in mass graves .