On April 15, 1964, she spoke at the banquet celebrating Nikita Khrushchev's 70th birthday. On April 30 she shared the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples, with three others. On February 22, 1965, Ibárruri asked the ministers of External Affairs and the Spanish army and the defense attorney, asking to appear as a witness at the court martial of former Republican commander Justo Lopez de la Fuente. De la Fuente had been condemned to twenty-three years in prison. Everyone expected that he would be sentenced to death. She held a press conference in Moscow to publicize these actions. On February 27 the Captain General of the Madrid region annulled the proceedings. However, the first sentence stuck and Lopez later died in prison.