MADRID (SPAIN)
BBC News
June 25, 2018
By James Badcock
When an 85-year-old gynaecologist goes on trial in Madrid on 26 June accused of abducting a baby, thousands of victims of a sinister, sprawling network of illegal adoptions will be looking for answers.
They will also be hoping that the case triggers wider investigations into the scandal.
Dr Eduardo Vela will become the first person to stand trial for what victims’ groups claim was a secret practice that saw hundreds of thousands of babies stolen and sold under the dictatorship of Gen Francisco Franco and after his death in 1975.
In the years immediately after Spain’s 1936-1939 civil war, children were removed from families identified by the victorious fascist regime as Republicans and given to families considered more deserving.
Little was known about the private trafficking of babies that continued in the 1960s until two men went public with their story in 2011.
Antonio Barroso and Juan Luis Moreno revealed they had been bought by their respective fathers from a priest in Zaragoza.
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