SPAIN
Times LIVE (South Africa)
An 87-year-old Spanish nun accused of trafficking in newborns in the 1980s, a practice believed to date from the Franco dictatorship, has died, her convent said.
Sister Maria Gomez Valbuena in April last year was the first person to go before a judge over the “stolen babies” scandal.
General Francisco Franco’s regime allowed children to be taken from their parents on moral or ideological grounds, and the practice allegedly continued for profit for years after his death in 1975.
Asked about press reports that she had died on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul convent said: “Yes indeed, but we do not have more information.”
Sister Maria had been scheduled to appear in court for questioning for a second time last week but the hearing was postponed indefinitely because of her poor health.
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