A Spanish court has ruled that a doctor did steal newborn babies nearly 50 years ago however he can’t be punished as too much time has elapsed.
The Madrid court said 85-year-old gynaecologist Eduardo Vela could not be punished because one of those who were stolen, plaintiff Ines Madrigal, did not make her complaint until 2012.
However the court did find that Mr Vela was responsible for abducting Ms Madrigal in 1969 and faked her birth by her adoptive parents and even forged official documents.
Monday’s verdict is the first in relation to the wide-scale child trafficking that took place from the onset of the country's Civil War in 1936 to the death of dictator General Francisco Franco in 1975.
The Franco regime campaigned to take away the children of poor families, prisoners or political enemies. They were known to have stripped women of their newborns by lying and saying they had died during labour.
These children were then given to pro-Franco families or the church.
Mr Vela denied the accusations against him during this year’s trial.
Ms Madrigal, who learned at 18 that she wasn't living with her biological parents, argued that she couldn't have lodged her complaint earlier because she only learned about the scheme in 2010, when her adopting mother, who died three years later, disclosed the details of what had happened at Mr Vela's clinic.
DNA tests confirmed the account, but Ms Madrigal's biological parents were never found.
Ms Madrigal, now 49, said she considered the provincial court's verdict to be "bittersweet" and announced she would be appealing it to the country's Supreme Court.
"I'm happy because the judges are acknowledging that there was theft, that I was taken away from my mother, but I didn't think they would stop short of convicting him," she told reporters, adding that "the judges should had been brave."
Spain only started investigating the "stolen babies" cases a decade ago, when National Court magistrate Baltasar Garzon opened a probe on the more than 30,000 children that were under the care of the regime.
Additional reporting by AP.
