Garzon trial forces Spain to confront painful past

MADRID (Reuters) - Sitting at a wooden table before the judges of Spain's Supreme Court, Maria Martin Lopez recalls the day a lifetime ago when fascists loyal to General Francisco Franco shot her mother.

White-haired and dressed in black, Martin, 81, described how her mother's killers had punished her afterwards by forcing her to drink castor oil and eat hot chillies in an act of cruelty designed to humiliate a six-year-old child.

"They asked for a thousand pesetas and since she didn't have them they threw her into the street. They were taking her to Arenas de San Pedro, but they killed her on the way," Martin said of that day in 1936.

Her testimony, and that of other Franco victims, was broadcast during the trial of crusading human rights judge Baltasar Garzon, a case that has split the nation and rekindled debate over whether Spain should do more to face a painful chapter from its past....