Madonna adoption blow after man claims to be girl's father

Security guard says he thought girl had died with mother during birth and now wants to raise her as a Malawian.

• Madonna has suffered a fresh blow to her hopes of adopting a girl from an orphanage in Malawi after a man claiming to be the four-year-old’s father said that he wants custody of her.
• The American singer’s appeal against a ruling that denied her request to adopt four-year-old Chifundo “Mercy” James will be heard by Malawi’s supreme court tomorrow.
• But James Kambewa, believed to be the girl’s father, said she belongs with her biological family. “I want to take care of her, and I’m capable to take care of my baby,” he told the American television network CBS. “Mercy, she is a Malawian so [I] need her to grow as a Malawian as well with our culture.”
• Kambewa wears a necklace bearing the girl’s name but has never met her and admitted he has only seen her “in newspapers and TV, not face to face”.
• Madonna’s application to adopt Mercy, who lives in an orphanage, was rejected last month because of a stipulation that prospective parents be resident in Malawi for at least 18 months. The requirement was controversially waived when the singer was allowed to take a three-year-old boy, David Banda, to London in 2006. It was subsequently alleged that David’s biological father had only reluctantly let him go.
• In a separate interview with Britain’s Sunday Mirror today, Kambewa, 24, said that he has met Mercy’s maternal family in the hope they would support his application for custody.
• The paper reported that Kambewa, a security guard, had always believed Mercy died alongside her mother in childbirth.
• “My family has met Mercy’s family and we all agree we love the girl,” it quoted him saying. “She deserves the best we can give.
• “Whatever has happened, we should be allowed to raise our daughter as we wish. I hope that we can unite and fight this in the courts and see that it is so. I am Mercy’s father and should be allowed to see my daughter.”
• Madonna’s spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg, said she did not know whether Kambewa was the father of the girl. “All I know is that Mercy has been in an orphanage since the day she was born,” she said.
• Since 2006, Madonna’s charity, Raising Malawi, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on orphanages, education and feeding programmes in the impoverished southern African country.
• She told Malawi’s Nation newspaper recently: “I want to provide Mercy with a home, a loving family environment and the best education and healthcare possible. And it’s my hope that she, like David, will one day return to Malawi and help the people of their country.”
• The 50-year-old performer, who divorced the British film director Guy Ritchie last year, added: “Though I have been advised that I cannot publicly discuss the pending appeal regarding my desire to adopt Mercy, I do want to say how much I appreciate the level of support that I have received from the people of Malawi and my friends around the world.”