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Jolie expected to arrive in Vietnam soon: paper

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14/03/2007 12:12

HANOI (Reuters) - Hollywood star Angelina Jolie is expected to arrive in Vietnam on Thursday to take custody of a Vietnamese boy she has adopted, a state-run online newspaper said on Wednesday.

VNExpress quoted Nguyen Van Trung, director of Tam Binh Orphanage, as saying Jolie would arrive at Ho Chi Minh City after midnight. The newspaper report could not be immediately confirmed.

Communist-run Vietnam’s top adoption official said the authorities had speeded up Jolie’s adoption and she could come to take him to the United States "any time soon".

"All they need now is a signature from the vice mayor of Ho Chi Minh City to give the final approval," Vu Duc Long, director of the International Adoption Department, told Reuters.

Last week, Long said the adoption would likely be completed faster than normal, partly due to Jolie’s fame.

Jolie, 31, filed adoption papers in early March through an unidentified American agency without her partner Brad Pitt because under Vietnamese law, an unmarried couple may not adopt a child.

In Vietnam, adoptions have been known to take as little as one month if background checks and issues of whether the adopting family can support a child are quickly resolved.

However, the process can take six months or longer in some cases.

Long had said the child was a .....continued below

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boy aged between 3 and 4 years from the Tam Binh orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City.

VNExpress quoted orphanage director Trung as saying the boy was healthy and liked to play soccer. The child had been abandoned a local hospital and was admitted to the orphanage in 2003, Trung added.

Jolie and Pitt visited Ho Chi Minh City last November and met children at the orphanage. They have one biological child, Shiloh Nouvel who was born last year, and two adoptive children -- son Maddox from Cambodia and daughter Zahara from Ethiopia.

Jolie and Pitt, who starred in the 2005 movie "Mr. & Mrs. Smith", have said they have no plans to marry but are committed to raising their children together. They are also working together on the film "A Mighty Heart" about the killing of a U.S. journalist by Pakistani militants.

Jolie won an Oscar in 1999 for best supporting actress in "Girl, Interrupted". She starred in the 2001 movie "Tomb Raider" which was filmed in Cambodia, neighbouring Vietnam.