Spain's Stolen Babies: Doctor Faces Court Over Franco-Era Abductions

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Last edited Tue Jun 26, 2018, 02:12 PM - Edit history (1)

It was almost half a century ago that Ines Madrigal was born in Spain and handed to a woman who was not her mother. In all those years, she has seen no trace of her birth mother, nor any evidence that she was willingly given up for adoption. Madrigal suspects she was one of Spain's ninos robados -- stolen babies -- a victim of a sinister political practice that began after the Spanish Civil War and continued as recently as the 1990s.

Eduardo Vela, an 85-year-old obstetrician, faces court in the Spanish capital of Madrid on Tuesday, accused of abducting Madrigal as a newborn back in 1969. Public prosecutors are seeking an 11-year jail term for the illegal detention of a minor and forging a public document.

The woman who adopted Madrigal -- Ines Perez, who died two years ago -- had told CNN in 2012 that Vela gifted her the baby. Vela admits the signature on Madrigal's birth certificate is his, but he denies any involvement in "stealing" Madrigal, and is seeking a full acquittal, court documents show.

Evidence is growing that babies were removed, at first during the Franco era from families seen as Republicans and given to others loyal to the fascist regime. Some are believed to have been sold. The issue only came to light in 2011, when friends Juan Luis Moreno and Antonio Barroso publicly shared their stories, saying their fathers had bought them as children from a priest in the Spanish city of Zaragoza. - Read More...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/spains-stolen-babies-doctor-faces-court-over-franco-era-abductions/ar-AAzaqRp?ocid=HPCOMMDHP15
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francoist_Spain