AFP: Malawi court rejects Madonna adoption bid

A Malawian court on Friday rejected pop icon Madonna’s request to adopt a three-year-old girl, who would have become a sibling to another toddler she earlier adopted from a Malawian orphanage.

“I must have to decline to grant the application to Madonna,” judge Esmie Chondo said in a ruling following a closed-door hearing.

The singer and actress jetted into the southern African state on Sunday accompanied by her 12-year-old daughter Lourdes and three-year-old David Banda, whom she adopted in 2006 after seeing him in a Malawian orphanage.

The following day she filed her application to adopt Chifundo “Mercy” James, sparking fresh controversy over foreign adoptions.

From the Agence France Presse.