A 24-year-old Malawian man who claims to be the father of a girl Madonna wants to adopt vowed Sunday to fight the US pop icon's adoption bid.
James Kambewo spoke to AFP one day before Malawi's supreme court was to hear Madonna's appeal against a judge's rejection of her application to adopt three-year-old Chifundo "Mercy" James.
"I want Mercy back. I am the biological father of Mercy," Kambewa said in a telephone interview, adding that he wanted to "take care of her myself."
"I don't have the money to pay a lawyer, but I am looking for one so that I can issue an injunction stopping Madonna from continuing to seek to adopt my daughter," Kambewa said.
Madonna has appealed against a high court decision to reject her request to adopt Mercy, who would have become a sibling to David Banda, a boy she adopted in Malawi in 2006.
Three supreme court judges, headed by chief justice Lovemore Munlo, are to hear her appeal on Monday.
Kambewa said he had not seen Mercy since her mother gave birth to her and died shortly afterwards.
He said he abandoned the baby after the parents of Mercy's mother accused him of killing their daughter because she had died soon after giving birth.
When he learned that Madonna wanted to adopt Mercy, he said, "I discovered it was my daughter and vowed to see if could bring her to my home."
Kambewa works as a domestic worker in Blantyre, the commercial capital, earning about 80 dollars a month.
He said he initially complained to the government-sponsored Human Rights Commission, "who advised me to find a lawyer at the Legal Aid for free."
He is still waiting for an answer from the Legal Aid, a government department which provides free legal services to poor Malawians.
Maxwell Matewere, a leading children rights activist in Malawi, said he was aware of Kambewa's desire to keep the girl but that his organisation would not assist him in case DNA showed that he was not the father.
"We are not sure what the medical result could be," said Matewere, the director of Eye of the Child, a group that has opposed Madonna's adoption bid in court.
Kambewa "indeed wants his child back. He is looking for a lawyer. But he can't afford a lawyer," Matewere said.
But he said that at this stage, Kambewa would have to wait for the decision of the supreme court.
While the group will not assist Kambewa, Eye of the Child wants to convince the supreme court that "the judge did not err at all when she rejected Madonna to adopt Mercy," Matewere said.
Last month, Lilongwe high court Judge Esmie Chombo threw out Madonna's adoption application, warning that the case could open the door to trafficking in children.
Foreigners seeking to adopt in Malawi must be resident in the southern African nation for at least 18 months -- a requirement the judge said was a "bedrock" of adoption petitions.
This requirement was waived by another judge when Madonna, 50, adopted David leading to accusations that she had used her fame and wealth to fast-track the process.

Source: AFP