Spain asked to investigate the disappearance of babies during the Franco era

MADRID: More than 200 people filed a petition with Spain's attorney general on Thursday to investigate the disappearance of children during the Franco era and the early years of democracy, El País reported on Friday.

The Attorney General, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, who had refused to receive the victims, accepted a complaint of 261 cases which occurred in several waves since 1950. The Spanish association ANADIR, which helps people affected by illegal adoptions, hopes to find the parents or children they are looking for.

Lawyer Enrique Vila predicts that there are many more people who will adhere to the complaint.

Some of the evidence that the association will present include forged birth and death certificates and the testimony of a nurse who ensures that the sale of children was common at one clinic in Madrid where she used to work. There is also a testimony from a woman who confessed to having bought a girl in a park in 1979 and another woman who was told to pretend a pregnancy before receiving a baby.

Most cases reported today happened in the late seventies. Until 1987, when the law was changed, the administration barely had control over adoptions.

(BNO NEWS )