SPAIN FINALLY COMES TO TERMS WITH STOLEN BABY SCANDAL
Inés Madrigal was born prematurely in 1969 at Madrid’s San Ramon clinic, after which, she alleges, she was abducted by an obstetrician and given away without the consent of her birth mother.
Madrigal suspects that she is one of Spain’s ninos
robados — stolen babies who were taken from “unsuitable” mothers in the 20th century and given to parents deemed more loyal or more appropriate by the regime of dictator Francisco Franco.
This practice, which came to light in 2011, lasted more than seven decades and may have involved 30,000 children or more, experts say.
During the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, this system of abduction was designed to weaken Marxist forces by depriving them of their offspring. Parents were often told that their babies had died at the operating table when, in fact, they had been given away. In the 1950s, the practice evolved to target low-income families and unmarried couples seen as inappropriate guardians of young children.
The abductions ended in the late 1980s, but thousands are seeking justice today.
More than 2,000 cases of stolen children have been filed with Spanish prosecutors.
Madrigal is one of them, and she took her obstetrician, Eduardo Vela, to court on Tuesday.
Vela, now 85, is the first person to stand trial over this practice, which is said to have involved a vast network of medical, governmental and church officials.
Vela told a court in Madrid that he could not remember the exact nature of his duties at the San Ramón clinic, which he ran for 20 years up to 1982.
The case began with Vela denying accusations of having given Inés Madrigal to her adoptive parents as a newborn in 1969, using falsified birth papers that stated she was their biological daughter.
“I didn’t give any baby to anyone,” the gynaecologist mumbled when asked if he had met Inés Pérez, Madrigal’s adoptive mother, whose testimony to an investigating judge was crucial in bringing the ground-breaking case to trial.
Before her death in 2016, Pérez said Vela had given her a baby girl as “a gift” after showing her how to feign pregnancy by putting cushions under her clothes.
Shown the birth certificate paper stating that Madrigal is the biological daughter of Pérez and her husband with his alleged signature, Vela said: “This is not mine; I don’t remember.”
Before the start of the trial, Madrigal said she hoped that Vela would take the opportunity to explain his role in the scandal.
“Dr. Vela knows a lot of things,” she told reporters.
Taking the stand as a witness, a tearful Madrigal said it had been a “huge emotional blow” to find out in 2011 that she might have been stolen from her biological mother after she discovered she was not related to her parents.
Vela had been briefly investigated in the early 1980s after a magazine report quoted mothers saying their babies had died in suspicious circumstances, and a photographer captured the image of a dead baby being kept in a fridge.
Fuencisla Gómez, whose accusation of baby-snatching against Vela is still being investigated, claims her firstborn child was abducted from San Ramón in 1971. She and her husband, Fernando Álvarez, were told the girl had died suddenly, but they never got to see the body.
“I just hope he talks at last,” Gómez said outside the court on Tuesday, where she and Álvarez had joined protesters.
A vast majority of the more than 2,000 complaints of possible cases reported in the past decade have been shelved by prosecutors.
Spain’s slow-moving wheels of justice have meant that five years have passed since Vela was formally accused of abducting Madrigal, as well as the offences of illegal adoption, simulating pregnancy and falsifying documents. The public prosecutor is asking for a jail sentence of 11 years if he is found guilty.
In 2013, 88-year-old nun María Gómez Valbuena was accused of kidnapping a pair of twins, but she died before she was called to testify. Since then, various cases have been shelved because of a lack of evidence or because the statute of limitations has passed.
Even before Vela arrived at the Madrid court on Tuesday morning, dozens had gathered outside with signs calling for “human rights for stolen babies” and yellow gloves to symbolize missing relatives.
One of those present was Carmen Lorente, a mother from Seville, Spain who told AFP that medical officials had told her in 1979 that her baby son had suffocated in her womb even though she recalled hearing his cries.
“It is a very important day for all those who are affected and for all mothers,” Lorente said.
“Because a precedent is created by this man sitting in the dock.”