A SMALL private jet carrying the one-year-old Malawian boy pop star Madonna hopes to adopt took off from the southern African country today, a witness said today.
The child, David Banda, was whisked out of his native Malawi with one of Madonna's bodyguards and her personal assistant on a flight which is believed to be headed for Johannesburg.Malawian law prohibits adoptions by non-residents, but officials are granting an exemption or waiver to Madonna, who has confirmed her intention to adopt the child who has lived in a dilapidated orphanage near the Zambian border since shortly after his birth.
A lawyer for human rights groups who had planned to file an application on Monday asking the court to block the adoption said it was technically legal for Madonna to take Banda out of the country.
But rights groups reiterated their anger that the pop diva was being allowed to circumvent Malawian laws.
ldquo;The rich shouldn't get preferential treatment.
I am fine with the idea of the adoption but I want people to go through the system, rdquo; said Emmie Chanika, director of the Civil Liberties Committee.
The chairman and lawyer for a group of 59 non-governmental organisations trying to challenge the adoption in court said the group needed to drum up support among Banda's family before it could lodge a court injunction to block the adoption.
ldquo;We are making an application for the court to recognise us as a sufficiently interested party .
.. so that we can file an injunction later in the week, rdquo; said Justin Dzonzi of the Human Rights Consultative Committee.
It is believed the boy will be flown to Johannesburg or possibly Nairobi. He may then be transferred to Britain, where Madonna lives with her filmmaker husband Guy Ritchie.
Today's events came less than a week after Malawi's High Court granted the entertainer and Ritchie an interim order allowing them to take custody of the child.
The couple, who arrived in Malawi on October 4 on what was described as a humanitarian trip, left last Friday without boy, who did not have a passport.
A final court decision on the adoption was expected within two years, after officials have a chance to monitor how the child relates to his new environment in the United States and Great Britain where Madonna and Ritchie have homes, according to a senior government official.
Madonna spent most of her time in Malawi visiting orphanages and meeting charity workers as part of a campaign to publicise the plight of some 900,000 orphans in this nation of 13 million people, where AIDS has destroyed many families.
She has pledged to donate about $3 million to the campaign to help these children, many of whom are infected with HIV. The effort is being spearheaded by her Raising Malawi charity.
Madonna is the mother of two children.
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