The father of the Malawian baby Madonna hopes to adopt today travelled from his village to the country's high court to say that he wanted his son to live with the singer.

In the two weeks of non-step press coverage since Madonna applied to adopt David Banda, a poor, 13-month-old, motherless baby, Yohane Banda, the child's father, has been quoted saying that he misunderstood the celebrity's intentions, believing that she wanted only to be a temporary carer.

Today Mr Banda confronted an alliance of 67 child rights groups in Lilongwe which is protesting against the adoption and said that it should go ahead. Speaking to reporters outside the high court, Mr Banda said:

"I gave David to Madonna with all my heart so that she should bring him up and give him a better life.

"I am worried about the case here because it might jeopardise the chances for David. I don’t agree with the action taken by the rights groups. Where were they when Madonna came to Malawi to seek this adoption? I want David to be kept by Madonna."

A coalition of child protection groups is attempting to block the adoption, claiming that the Malawian Government broke its own adoption legislation to accommodate the celebrity. Today, they were given until mid-November to prepare their case.

After a closed-door meeting with Judge Andrew Nyirenda at the high court in Lilongwe, lawyers for Madonna, the rights groups and the Attorney General of Malawi, who is personally representing the Government in the case, emerged to say that the next hearing would take place on November 13.

"The hearing has been postponed until November 13 for the closed-door chamber to hear further arguments," said Justin Dzodzi, a spokesman for those protesting against the adoption.

Allan Chinula, Madonna’s lawyer in Malawi, confirmed the date: "The rights groups have been asked to prepare more arguments. We have already given our evidence to the court."

Madonna's high-profile application to adopt David two weeks ago has prompted a backlash of criticism that is said to have astonished the singer.

Child-protection agencies have alleged that Malawian authorities fell over themselves to grant the popstar, thought to be worth £250 million, an interim adoption of the boy.

In Malawi adoptive parents usually have to have been resident there for 18 months but Madonna flew home to London within days of meeting the child. Then Yohane Banda, David’s father, claimed to have misunderstood the agreement, believing that Madonna would be a temporary carer.

Madonna chose the sympathetic stage of The Oprah Winfrey Show to air the first public defence of her actions earlier this week. She told Winfrey: "There are no adoption laws in Malawi. And I was warned by my social worker that... they were more or less going to have to make them up as we went along.

"She did say to me, ‘Pick Ethiopia. Go to Kenya. Don’t go to Malawi because you’re just going to get a hard time.’ "

Madonna said that she had first seen David in the footage of a documentary that she was financing. She had been "transfixed" by his image and, after learning that his mother had died, decided to try to give him a better life. She had not expected the subsequent outrage.

"I understand that gossip and negative stories sell newspapers. But I’m disappointed because it discourages other people from doing the same thing - anybody who had the idea that they, too, would like to open their home and give a life to a child in an orphanage who might not live past the age of five ... I feel like the media is doing a great disservice to all the orphans of Africa."

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