Thousands of babies in Spain were abducted and given away. Now, a doctor is on trial

Dr Eduardo Vela denied accusations of having given Inés Madrigal, right, to her adoptive parents as a new-born baby girl in 1969. Photos / BBC News

A Spanish doctor who is the first person to be put on trial in connection with a historic stolen babies scandal has denied any knowledge of a child-trafficking network centred around the Madrid clinic where he was the director.

Dr Eduardo Vela, an 85-year-old gynaecologist, 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.

As the case opened, a group of around 100 protesters gathered outside the court, demanding justice for the stolen babies and duped mothers, the Daily Telegraph reports.

But the case began with Vela denying accusations of having given Inés Madrigal to her adoptive parents as a new-born baby girl 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 that 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 a scandal that may have affected tens or even hundreds of thousands of children, illegally adopted without their mothers' consent during the Franco regime and after the dictator's death in 1975.

"Dr Vela knows a lot of things," she told reporters.

Dr Eduardo Vela.

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 that 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 that her first-born child was abducted from San Ramón in 1971. She and her husband, Fernando Álvarez, were told that 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, where she and Álvarez had joined protesters.

A vast majority of the more than 2000 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.

Protesters outside the court.