Two men claim to be bomb victim's father
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-09-13 09:48

A five-year-old Australian girl critically injured in a Jakarta bomb blast is at the centre of a custody battle between two men who claim to be her father, a Singapore newspaper said yesterday.

Australian policeman David Norman and a bank security guard from Italy, Manuel Musu, both say they are Elizabeth Manuela Bambina Musu's father, the Sunday Times said.

The two men and their family members are at a Singapore hospital to be with Manny, as she is affectionately known, after she was airlifted to the city-state for emergency surgery.

"It's very tense, especially between the grandparents," Laura Siano, an administrative attache with the Italian Embassy, was quoted as saying.

"The two dads do talk to each other though... When they met on Friday, both were crying," she said.

Musu's father, Enrico, who was also at the hospital, said his son married Manny's mother, Maria Eva Kumalawati in 1999.

Maria was among the nine killed in Thursday's explosion outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. She was going there with Manny to collect her daughter's Australian passport.

Norman, the Australian who is also claiming to be Manny's father, asked that his family be given privacy.

"I understand and appreciate the genuine concern of people around the world, who are giving such strong support, but I would ask that our privacy be respected at this time, so that Manny is given the space she needs to recover fully," Norman said in a statement issued here.

Manny is in a critical condition and remains under sedation on Saturday, doctors from the Mount Elizabeth Hospital said.

In another development, Indonesian police re-enacted yesterday scenes from a bombing that killed nine people outside the Australian Embassy. "The re-enactment is meant to clarify the positions of the incident as matching as possible to the real situation," said a national police spokesman.

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