Madrid - The prison of Carabanchel, one of the main symbols of General Francisco Franco's 1939-75 dictatorship that still stands in Spain, is about to disappear, unless a citizen's group has its way.

Demolition machines are pounding at the star-shaped brick building in the working class neighbourhood of Carabanchel in south-western Madrid. But a citizens' movement is making last-ditch attempts to save what it regards as a memorial to political repression.

Looking at the remains of the building, littered with rubbish and with its crumbling walls now covered in graffiti, it is hard to remember the awe it once inspired.

It was built in the 1940s, partially by prisoners of the 1936-39 civil war, which brought Franco to power. It was also the scene for some dramatic moments in Spanish history.

The Carabanchel prison is known for having housed numerous political prisoners in the Franco era, including trade unionist Marcelino Camacho, communist leader Simon Sanchez Montero, Socialist Enrique Mugica who later became justice minister, and writer Fernando Arrabal.

It is here that the anarchists Francisco Granados and Joaquin Delgado were executed in 1963, by strangulation with the garrote vil.

It is also here that the three last leftists shot dead by the Franco regime spent their final hours in 1975.

Many other inmates were not jailed for political reasons. Common criminals held at Carabanchel included quadruple murderer Jose Maria Jarabo, who was garroted in 1959.

After Franco died in 1975 and a democratic Spain granted an amnesty to political prisoners, common criminals jailed at Carabanchel mutinied in vain attempts to be released as well.

The history of the prison comprises "thousands of pages filled with death, mutinies, disease, injustice, despair and escape attempts," the daily El Pais wrote.

Prisoners at Carabanchel made so many attempts to flee through tunnels that the soil underground is full of holes, like a piece of cheese, one story goes.

The claim is not true, though prison officials did discover a tunnel that jailed members of the militant Basque separatist group ETA had begun digging in 1982.

Carabanchel continued to house prisoners until 1998, when 2,000 male and 500 female inmates were transferred to other penitentiaries.

The government and the Madrid regional authorities finally decided to tear down the prison over the opposition of some former inmates, a citizens' group, and the far-left party Izquierda Unida. Those organizations want to preserve the central part of the penitentiary as a "centre for peace."

"The prison of (Nelson) Mandela in South Africa and Nazi concentration camps in Germany have also been preserved," argued Julian Rebollo, a representative of the groups trying to save the prison.

The government wants to "bury the memory of political prisoners in the mass grave of history," one local resident said.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government has also passed a law to restore the dignity of Franco's victims, more than 100,000 of whom are believed to have lost their lives in acts of repression during and after the war.

The prison of Carabanchel, however, is due to give way to 650 flats and a hospital.

Some residents accuse the authorities of favouring property speculators over historic memory, while others say they are glad to get rid of the squatters who stayed at the prison.

Representatives of the "pro-prison" group went to see judge Baltasar Garzon, who has launched an investigation into Franco's human rights abuses.

The magistrate cannot, however, stop the demolition of the prison of Carabanchel, because the deadline for such action has expired, interior ministry sources said. dpa