What do Cromwell, Chaplin and Guevara have in common?

While RIP is the first thing that we update our Facebook statuses and Twitter accounts with when a celebrity passes away, not all of them actually have the luxury to rest in peace. Take for example Yasser Arafat. With conspiracy theories flying thick and fast around the late Palestinian leader’s death, his body has been exhumed to ascertain if he had been poisoned. The move follows repeated requests made by Arafat’s wife.

However Arafat has company. The BBC has compiled a list of celebrities whose remains were exhumed after they were given ceremonial burials.

While no exhumation could come with a pleasing-to-the-senses story, Oliver Cromwell’s case, as mentioned in the BBC story is probably among the most gruesome. The English statesman was buried in the Westminister Cathedral in 1658. However, with the advent of the Reformation, protestors dug his body up along with two others’. He was then beheaded and his severed head displayed on a pole on the Westminister Cathedral.

Charlie Chaplin, who died in 1977, too suffered the same fate with two mischief makers digging up his body in 1978 and holding it ransom. They made demands of money from Chaplin’s lawyer after having re-buried the remains in a cornfield in Switzerland. Three months later, when the grave robbers were arrested, Chaplin’s remains were buried back in the original site in Switzerland.

The exhumation of Che Guevara’s body, however, was less shocking. In fact, the Cuba rebel leader, who was captured and shot in 1967 was buried in a location that remain undisclosed for years. It was only in the nineties that an officer involved in the operation revealed the location of the site and Guevera’s body was exhumed to be given a respectable burial.

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