The stolen babies of the Canary Islands trust the Supreme Court after the Vela's acquittal - La Provincia

"We want to continue trusting in justice", underlines the delegate in Canary Islands of SOS Babies Stolen Madrid, Dácil Vera, after hearing this week the first sentence on the abduction of newborns in Spain, which considers the doctor Eduardo Vela author of illegal detention, assumption of birth and falsification in official document but acquits the octogenarian for the prescription of the three crimes committed in 1969. However, both the victim, Inés Madrigal, and the Prosecutor's Office, who requested 11 years in prison for the retired gynecologist, announce an appeal for cassation before the court. Supreme Court against the ruling of the Provincial Court of Madrid.

Although it is estimated that more than 300,000 children were stolen in Spain between 1940 and 1999, more than 300 children in the Canary Islands, only through the judicial process the complaint lodged by Madrigal against the director of the San Ramón clinic in Madrid for two decades, from 1961 to 1981. "I did not want to answer the phone on Monday, I felt sad and angry because the sentence was another slap to our cause, the victims were very angry, with a sense of helplessness before the law," sums up Dácil Vera, Also illuminated in the Madrid Paseo de la Habana during 1976, although the Spanish capital is crossed out in its birth certificate and replaced by Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Installed in Tenerife since 1991, at the age of 14, the island delegate of SOS Babies Stolen abandoned the initial pessimism after the acquittal of Dr. Vela thanks, precisely, to the "mood" transmitted by the complainant, with which he shares Guillermo Peña as lawyer through the Madrid association. "I spoke with Inés and she asked me to see the sentence in another way, because the most complicated was admitted, the court declared the gynecologist guilty of the crime", explains Vera, who now places the "hot potato" of the prescription or not of the theft of a child in the High Court.

In his opinion, the ruling is based on a "restrictive interpretation" of the law when accounting for the ten years of expiry of the illegal detention, the period of the most serious crime, from the completion of the applicant's age of majority, although Various judicial resolutions consider as the beginning of the period the instant in which the victim acquires knowledge of the punitive act. "I can not report a crime that I do not know," Dácil Vera said before emphasizing, however, that SOS Babies Stolen defend the statute of limitations of the crime when considering a violation of Human Rights.

"We demand that this crime be considered as crimes against humanity and that it not prescribe, because we understand that because of its seriousness, duration in time and number of people affected, this cruel action is comparable with other heinous crimes that move the public opinion", argued on Wednesday in a statement. As recalled the Madrid collective, "the pain of mothers and also of parents and family never prescribes."

Jorge Rodríguez, who claims that "the aftermath of Franco's crimes have remained unpunished so far" also coincides with the definition of crimes against humanity and, therefore, with the claim of non-applicability of the statute of limitations. After predicting a "long struggle" to resolve the countless enforced disappearances and illegal adoptions of minors, Rodriguez shows his "outrage" at the Madrid hearing's ruling and even points to a possible prevarication due to the refusal to recognize the validity of a crime regarding the identity of the human being.

"The room is aware of the tear that the prosecuted conducts cause to the victims", recognizes the sentence of the seventh section of the Audiencia de Madrid. "However, even if the international treaties on the subject set the imprescriptibility of crimes against humanity, that requirement that has been brought to our domestic legal order has an application for the future and it is not appropriate to grant it a retroactive interpretation", state the magistrates María Luisa Aparicio, Ángela Acevedo and Teresa García in reference to a principle that allows, for example, to judge now the theft of children during the last dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983).

Through the resources, the canary delegate from SOS Babies Stolen expresses her "hope" that the Supreme Court assume the international premise to issue "a favorable verdict" to Inés Madrigal, a conviction for Eduardo Vela as jurisprudence for the thousands of pending cases. In Vera's opinion, "society is convinced that it is a crime against humanity, we have spectacular social support, but we need a turnaround, that the courts, the archives and the Church collaborate, help and open all its doors."

For her it is essential in the search for her identity, since she needs full access to the full documentation of her birth before initiating a judicial process to obtain the final reparation of the damage caused. Confirmed during 2016 by her own mother, until then biological and now adopted, the news about her "sale for 200,000 pesetas" (1,200 euros) by Dr. Vela was a shock: "The floor disappeared under my feet, I've been two years of mental chaos. "

According to Dácil Vera, "my father organized everything, he found out from someone in the neighborhood, Escaleritas, who were faster with adoptions in San Ramón and grabbed a plane to Madrid, but died in 2009. My mother was also with him [Eduardo Vela] in his office and he told me that he was a very affable, almost affectionate man, nothing to do with the image of a rough man during the trial, although it is another context with a certain level of action, he even asked if he brought clothes for me and asked him go up to the room to dress me as she wanted, where she met a couple who left with another little girl like me, could be a twin sister, but does not know anything else, "laments the delegate in Canary Islands SOS Babies Stolen Madrid , waiting to be able to open the Vera case soon versus Candle.