Madrid  - The Spanish government has begun granting certificates recognizing the suffering of General Francisco Franco's leftist victims during the 1936-39 civil war and Franco's ensuing dictatorship, sources of the Justice Ministry said Friday.

The first 42 recipients included the family of former Catalan regional prime minister Lluis Companys, who was sentenced to death by a Francoist tribunal on what is widely regarded as insufficient evidence, and executed in 1940.

The 2007 Law of Historic Memory seeking to rehabilitate the memory of Franco's victims stipulates the possibility of such recognition, which does not include economic compensation.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government watered the law down from an initial version because of opposition from the conservative People's Party (PP), which accused the government of reopening old wounds.

The Franco dictatorship ended with the general's death in 1975. (dpa)