LILONGWE, Oct 23: A senior Malawian government official on Monday dismissed as untrue remarks by an illiterate father who said he was misled into signing over his son for adoption by pop diva Madonna.

Yohane Banda, father of the one-year-old boy, said on Saturday that he never intended his son to be adopted by Madonna. He accused senior officials in government of not telling him the truth about the papers he signed.

“Had they told us that Madonna wanted to adopt my son and make him her own son, we would not have agreed to that,” Banda said in his local language of Chichewa.

“It would have been better for him to continue staying at the orphanage because I see no reason why my child should be given away forever when I can feed him,” he said, speaking at his village of Lipunga, near the Zambia border.—Reuters