A judge in Malawi adjourned to November 13 a hearing into an attempt by rights groups to block Madonna's adoption of a Malawian boy, lawyers said on Friday.
Yohane Banda, whose one-year-old son David was flown to London earlier this month to join the American singer, went to the court in central Lilongwe as "a sign of protest" against the legal moves to prevent the adoption.
"The hearing has been adjourned ... for the judge to hear other parties involved," Madonna's Malawian lawyer Alan Chinula told Reuters after he and counsel for the rights groups met high court judge Andrew Nyirenda in his chambers.
Neither lawyer gave details of the proceedings. Controversy over Madonna's adoption plan has raged since she visited Malawi earlier this month on what her publicists said was a humanitarian mission to help thousands of orphans.
The Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC), an alliance of 67 advocacy groups, filed the case arguing that Malawi laws forbid international adoption. It says the government broke its own laws by granting Madonna interim adoption rights. The coalition's lawyer, Justin Dzonzi, suggested he may seek to associate the boy's father or other relatives with the group's application in order to bolster the case.
"The judge will continue hearing our application on November 13 because we are still looking for more 'sufficient interest' in the case," Dzonzi told Reuters. Banda this week criticised the rights groups and urged Madonna to stand firm and not to send back the boy. David had spent most of his life in a dilapidated orphanage following the death of his mother soon after he was born.
"It is not for them to fight for me and for the so-called rights of my child," Banda said in an interview with Reuters Television on Wednesday. "My message to Madonna is that she should not be discouraged, be strong. As we agreed and we expect that after three to four years the child shall come back for us to see him," Banda said. He was responding to Madonna's remarks to US talk show host Oprah Winfrey broadcast on Wednesday, expressing concern over the controversy surrounding her planned adoption.
Banda said in the interview he knew the boy would be taken away to be raised and educated by the 48-year-old star, but said he was unclear about the legal agreement he had signed and still regarded himself as the child's father. He arrived at the colonial-style courthouse with two other men he described as his cousins just as the hearing had started. "I have come here as a sign of protest against what the human rights groups are trying to do," Banda told Reuters.