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MADRID — A Spanish court ruled Monday that a doctor stole a newborn child nearly five decades ago, one of the many abducted during Spain’s 20th-century dictatorship, but cleared him because the statute of limitations had expired.
The Madrid court said 85-year-old gynecologist Eduardo Vela could not be punished because one of those who were stolen, plaintiff Ines Madrigal, did not make her complaint until 2012, more than a decade after the gravest crime had taken place.
The court did find, however, that Vela was responsible for abducting Madrigal in 1969, faking her birth by her adoptive parents and forging official documents.
Monday’s verdict is Spain’s 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 Gen. Francisco Franco in 1975.
The right-wing regime waged a campaign to take away the children of poor families, prisoners or political enemies, sometimes stripping women of their newborns by lying and saying they had died during labor. The children were then given to pro-Franco families or the church, who educated the children on the regime’s ideology and on Roman Catholicism.
Vela, the director of a Madrid clinic considered to be at the epicenter of the scandal, denied the accusations during this year’s trial.
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 Vela’s clinic.
DNA tests confirmed the account, but Madrigal’s biological parents were never found.
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.”
Madrigal’s was the only case of “stolen babies” — as they are known in Spain — that has made it to the trial stage. Most lawsuits have been rejected in the past by courts for coming after the statute of limitations expired.
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.

Franklin Mayor Eugene Foulcard received the Chez Hope “Peacemaker” award Thursday during the organization’s Unity Day Luncheon.
Master of Ceremonies and Chez Hope Board President Chuck Autin made the introduction of the award, which Foulcard was not aware of.
“Chuck don’t normally hold too much to the chest,” Foulcard kidded when he took the podium. “I’m surprised he got this one by me.”
Foulcard noted that “the Bible says ‘blessed are the peacemakers.’ As we were growing up my mother always told us to become peacemakers because if you can’t help a situation, don’t hurt it...I’m extremely thankful.”
The mayor said he was perplexed when he saw many family members arrive that he didn’t expect. “I’m grateful that your call came out,” he said. “The icing on the cake was when my uncle Robert Delasbour walked in, and I said, ‘Wait a minute, something’s happening.’”
“I hope to continue to move Franklin forward,” he concluded.

By CASEY COLLIER
Michael “Beer Man” Lewis, New Orleans Saints Hall of Fame wide receiver/ punt returner gave the keynote remarks at Fit Fun and Fabulous Serving St. Mary Parish’s Lamp Post luncheon Thursday.
Lewis’ comical and casual style took center-stage during the remarks portion of the luncheon, running a stark contrast to the traditional and earnest address from the morning’s breakfast speaker Durand “Rudy” Macklin.
Lewis spoke of Franklin’s charm, and confided his love for small towns like Franklin, saying, “Your town is like something from TV. It’s nice. Everything is all together, and the people here are so sweet.”
However, he left no doubt of how contrarily he felt about Dallas Cowboy fans, Pittsburgh Steelers fans and Atlanta Falcons fans, ribbing them for a good portion of his half-hour address, for not having the good sense to be Saints fans instead.
He also spoke of his having played football in many forms other than the NFL before earning a spot on the Saints.
He said he was driving a janitorial truck between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, and quit his job, where he was reportedly making almost $1,000 per week, when his boss refused to give him a Friday off for a game.
Lewis said that at the time, he was only making $200 per week to play football in New Orleans.
He went on to speak about the day he quit his beer truck driving job at Budweiser. He said he got a call to sign his NFL contract with the Saints while he was in the middle of his route, and that he turned around, brought the truck back, and went directly to the Saints’ office to sign his contract.
During the Q & A portion of the luncheon, Iris Sharpe asked on behalf of Franklin Rotary, if Lewis had any tickets to upcoming games with which he didn’t mind parting. Sharpe urged that the Rotary would use the tickets for fundraising and would raffle them off, as they did last year, (when Beverly Domengeaux won the tickets and took her son for the weekend and reportedly had a fantastic time.)
After poking fun at Sharpe for asking that question of a man who had not received a check from the Saints organization in some time, Lewis fished his phone from the back pocket of his trousers, and leaning on the podium, began searching through his calendar, whistling and snarking, all the while.
As Sharpe began to physically shrink into her seat, under the seeming ridicule of Lewis, he straightened up, broke into a grin, and said he was going to donate his two personal tickets to the Nov. 4 home game vs. the Los Angeles Rams. To which theatrical style diners broke into applause.
Of his current endeavors, Lewis said he trains kids to play professional football, and loves it.
When asked what kind of beer he prefers to drink, he answered that his mother loved to drink Coors Light, so he prefers to drink that beer when he gets the chance, but that he’ll “drink whatever you’ve got.”
In answer to who he thought was the most likely player on this year’s Saints team to turn a losing game into a winning game, Lewis replied that the game of football is such a team sport that every single player on the team has the ability to win and lose the game for the entire team at every given point in the game. He then smiled and nodded, “But you know, Mark Ingram is coming back on Sunday.”