The first hearing ever held in Spain regarding torture from the era of the Franco dictatorship

Evidence of the torture, which took place in 1975 during the reign of the late Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, was presented before a Madrid court in what rights groups claim is the first case of its kind to be accepted for legal review.

A court hearing in the capital of Spain was held regarding the accusations against five former police officers.

The main witness, Hulio Pacheko, told reporters in front of the courthouse that at the hearing he told how the police tortured him in 1975, when he was a 19-year-old student.

Pacheco expressed hope that his testimony would be a step toward "the beginning of breaking down the wall of silence and impunity" regarding abuses during Franco's rule.

Paček's wife also testified.

Previously, judges refused to take such cases because of a 1977 amnesty law that blocked the prosecution of Franco-era crimes.

The law was part of Spain's effort to put that period behind it and strengthen its fledgling democracy after Franco's death in 1975.

Under pressure from victims and human rights groups who argue that torture and other serious crimes should not go unpunished, the centre-left socialist government last year opened the door to prosecutions for crimes committed under Franco's dictatorship.

The Law of Democratic Memory established procedures for investigations into human rights violations between the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the collapse of the dictatorship after Franco's death in 1975.