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LONDON (AP) - Armed police officers escorted the African infant being adopted by Madonna off a British Airways flight Tuesday, whisking him past photographers hoping to get a glimpse of the baby as he was being taken to the pop star's home. Three armed police officers, together with airline and airport officials, accompanied David Banda through Heathrow's Terminal 1 to the baggage hall.
The entourage then hustled the little boy wrapped in a gray coat through the back door and into a silver Mercedes minivan. "What you're waiting for has already left," said a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with departmental policy. The pop star and her husband, Guy Ritchie, were not seen at the airport.
A statement from Liz Rosenberg, Madonna's publicist in New York, said the child was issued a passport and a visa Monday. The couple were granted interim adoption of the child, who was granted a visa that allows him to travel with them, Rosenberg said. "This interim adoption grants David's new parents temporary custody for' months, during which time they will be evaluated by the courts of Malawi per the tribal customs of the country," she said in her statement said.
"It is expected that the family will be reunited in the next few days." Rosenberg said Madonna had wanted this to be a private matter, and declined to say when and where the family would be reunited. "She's going to do her best to not make it a public circus," Rosenberg told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
"It's not my sense that she would want to expose the whole thing to public scrutiny." Banda was accompanied when he left Lilongwe, Malawi's capital, by two Britons and two Americans, one of whom listed her occupation as nanny, according to a Malawi immigration official at the airport who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Human rights groups want Malawi's courts to review a ruling allowing Madonna to adopt the child from this impoverished, AIDS-stricken southern African country, saying they want to ensure child protection regulations were not swept aside to benefit a singer who has been generous to the country.
The Malawi High Court granted preliminary custody to Madonna and Ritchie last week, waiving a law that requires would-be parents to live in the country for a year while social welfare officers investigate their ability to care for a child. Justin Dzonzi, a lawyer for a coalition of human rights and child advocacy organizations, said his group would file documents Tuesday asking a judge to review the adoption. Dzonzi said they were not concerned that the child had left Malawi, since the singer had been granted only temporary custody.
"Madonna has no parental rights, this is not an adoption order but one of temporary custody," he told the AP. He said they also were concerned that the child's father, farmer Yohame Banda, had not had the implications of the adoption properly explained to him. Banda had said earlier in the week that he was happy that Madonna was adopting his son.
David's mother died after giving birth, and the father had put his son in an orphanage. Under the court order, David Banda must be returned to Malawi if Madonna is seen to be treating him differently from her other children. Madonna and Ritchie have a son, Rocco, 6, and the singer also has a daughter, Lourdes, 9.
Madonna arrived in Malawi Oct. 4 on a mission to help AIDS orphans. Her charity Raising Malawi is setting up an orphanage for up to 4,000 children.
The AIDS pandemic has left close to 1 million orphans in Malawi, according to the National AIDS Commission. Associated Press writers Raphael Tenthani in Lilongwe, Malawi, Michelle Faul in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report. View seven day for previous Winnipeg Free Press stories.
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