Madonna: Dad wanted baby back
2006-10-15 16:34
London - The father of the Malawian child pop star Madonna wants to adopt said on Sunday he had not originally planned to give up his son for good when he handed him to an orphanage after the death of his wife last year.
Yohane Banda told a British newspaper he put his son David
in an orphanage when he was just over one month old, fearing
that he was ill with malaria, which killed his two other sons.
"I suppose deep in my heart I always imagined that when he
was better, or I had got another wife, I would go and take him
back," Banda told the Mail on Sunday.
"I did not think anyone would want to take him away."
Agreed to adoption
But Banda, 31, said he and his family had agreed to allow
Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie to adopt the child,
believing it would give him the chance to receive a good
education and grow up healthy.
"He will always be in my heart. I hate to see him leave
Malawi but I have come to accept the loss," Banda said.
"The government people told me it would be a good thing for the
country. He will come back educated and able to help us."
Madonna 'a good lady'
Until recently, Banda said he had no idea the woman seeking
to adopt his one-year-old son was a world-famous celebrity. He
said all he knew was that she was a "nice Christian lady".
Banda met Madonna in court in Malawi at an adoption hearing.
He told the Mail he looked into her eyes and "could tell from
them that she was a good lady".
Malawi's high court granted the 48-year-old entertainer and
her filmmaker husband an interim order allowing them to take
custody of the boy less than a week ago but the adoption plan
has sparked anger in Malawi and elsewhere.
Malawian law prohibits adoptions by non-residents, but
officials granted an exemption or waiver to Madonna.
Challenges to adoption
Human rights groups are challenging that decision and plan to seek a
court injunction on Monday to stop the adoption.
Eye of the Child, the leading child advocacy group in
Malawi, said the request would be filed in a magistrate's court
in the capital Lilongwe on behalf of about five dozen
non-governmental organisations.
The pop icon, who already has two children, could also face
hurdles in Britain, where she lives, because she has failed to
register with a local authority for adoption, the Mail said.
Madonna and Ritchie, who arrived in Malawi on October 4 on what
was described as a humanitarian trip, left on Friday without the
child, who did not have a passport.