Spain trial over 'stolen babies' resumes

Spain's first trial linked to thousands of suspected cases of babies stolen from their mothers during the Franco era resumed at a Madrid court yesterday, decades after the scandal broke.

Eduardo Vela, 85, a former gynaecologist at the now-defunct San Ramon clinic in Madrid, is accused of having in 1969 taken Ines Madrigal, now aged 49, from her biological mother and given her to another woman, who then raised her and was falsely certified as her birth mother.

A handful of activists protested outside the Madrid court as Vela arrived at the court in a wheelchair.

"It's an important day. We hope the trial will wrap up today and enter the sentencing phase," Madrigal told reporters as she arrived at the court.

Activists say hundreds of similar cases dating back to the right-wing dictatorship of 1939 to 1975 have failed to make it to court in Spain because of a lack of evidence or because the time limit to file charges has passed.

In a dark and often overlooked chapter of General Francisco Franco's dictatorship, the newborns of some left-wing opponents of the regime, as well as of unmarried or poor couples, were removed from their mothers and adopted.

New mothers were frequently told their babies had died suddenly within hours of birth and the hospital had taken care of their burials, but in fact they were given or sold to another family.

Baby stealing began in the 1950s after Franco came to power following the 1936-39 civil war pitting left-wing Republicans against conservative Nationalists loyal to the general. It was part of an effort to purge Spain of Marxist influence.

It was expanded to take newborns from poor families as well as illegitimate babies.

Enrique Vila, a lawyer who has written extensively about the "stolen babies" scandal, said Vela's trial could provide "moral" encouragement for other victims to bring forward lawsuits.

"There are dozens of doctors and nuns across Spain who are guilty" and who are still alive, he told AFP.

During questioning in the opening session of the trial on June 26, Vela said he could not remember details of how the clinic, which he ran for 20 years up to 1982 and is believed to have been a centre for baby trafficking, operated and that the signature on Madrigal's birth certificate was not his.