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Jolie arrives in Vietnam to adopt boy

(AP)
2007-03-15 08:20

American actress Angelina Jolie is seen in a car with her adopted son Maddox from Cambodia after arriving at the Ho Chi Minh City International Airport, southern Vietnam, Wednesday night, March 14, 2007. Jolie is in this southern Vietnamese city to adopt a 3-year-old boy. She is expected to attend an adoption ceremony with Vietnamese officials Thursday morning. (AP Photo)

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - Angelina Jolie arrived in Vietnam late Wednesday night, where she plans to adopt a 3-year-old boy. Airport security officials told a photographer working for The Associated Press that Jolie was whisked into a car with dark windows and driven away.

The actress was expected to attend an adoption ceremony with Vietnamese officials in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday morning, according to adoption officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the matter.

After she receives the child, Jolie will meet with U.S. consular officials, who must review the adoption before a passport can be issued for the boy.

If all goes according to plan, Jolie could bring the child home by the weekend, officials said.

A message left early Wednesday for a Jolie representative in Los Angeles wasn't immediately returned.

The boy has been living at the Tam Binh orphanage on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City since he was abandoned at a hospital as an infant, according to adoption officials.

Shortly after he arrived at the orphanage, the Tam Binh staff tried unsuccessfully to locate the boy's birth parents.

The boy is healthy, friendly and a little bit shy, they said. He gets along well with other children and loves to play soccer.

Jolie filed adoption papers as a single parent, because she and her partner, Brad Pitt, are not married.

They have three children: 5-year-old Maddox, adopted from Cambodia; 2-year-old Zahara, adopted from Ethiopia; and another daughter, Shiloh, who was born to the couple in May.

The pair made a surprise visit to the Tam Binh orphanage at Thanksgiving, when they were spotted cruising around Ho Chi Minh City on a motorbike.