Madonna visits the Kondanani Children's village, some 20 kilometres from Malawi's commercial capital Blantyre, October 5, 2006.. Photo Credit: REUTERS/Eldson Chagara

By Christopher Thompson and Mabvuto Banda

LILONGWE (Reuters) - Pop diva Madonna left Malawi on Friday after receiving official permission to adopt a one-year-old boy from the impoverished southern African country.

Her departure brought to a climax a controversial week-long charity visit during which her aides denied earlier reports by government officials that she planned to adopt a child.

Journalists were kept well away and were unable to see whether the boy, David Banda, was with Madonna as her white four-wheel drive vehicle swept onto the tarmac at the Lilongwe Kamuzu International Airport to a waiting private jet.

After a three-hour delay for what one army official told reporters was immigration clearance, the plane finally took off into the dark sky.

Banda's father has agreed to give his son, whom he had placed in an orphanage, to the American performer and her British filmmaker husband Guy Ritchie. Banda's mother died soon after giving birth.

Reports that Malawi's government may waive its rules barring foreign adoption for Madonna has prompted criticism from some charities.

Eye of the Child, a private Malawian child advocacy group, issued an open letter to Madonna this week, questioning whether foreign adoptions were in the best interests of children.

But Thomson Ligowe, deputy registrar for Malawi's high court, told Reuters on Thursday that Madonna had been granted an interim order to adopt Banda.

"(This) means that there's going to be a subsequent hearing by the same court to either allow her to adopt the child or not," he said.

HEARING WITHIN TWO YEARS

Under Malawian law the hearing must take place within two years.

"This also means that she has been put on observer status to see how she will relate to the child, and people from social welfare will have to observe that. The court will depend upon their observations to make a final decision," Ligowe added.

A senior government official told Reuters Malawi would use officials at its embassy in Washington to monitor how the child relates to his new environment and write reports that will form the basis of the court's next decision.

The 48-year-old singer stayed largely out of the limelight after arriving in Malawi on Oct. 4, although she was seen wearing a safari hat and in a jovial mood on a visit to one orphanage.

Madonna and Ritchie have homes in the United States and Britain, most unlikely settings for the young Banda, who has lived almost all of his brief life in a dilapidated orphanage.

The news that the child would be heading to a new life with a mega-rich pop star was seen generally as a blessing at the orphanage and surrounding villages, prompting some collegial envy among the kids who weren't chosen.

"I didn't know Madonna before she came to the orphanage, but I wish I had been the one she adopted. Life is hard here," Anders Malikita, a 14-year-old child at the orphanage, said.

Madonna, who has a son and daughter, has spent most of the past week visiting orphanages and meeting charity workers as part of a campaign to publicise the plight of some 900,000 orphans in the country 13 million people, where AIDS has destroyed many families.