Manuela set to be flown to Italy

Manuela set to be flown to Italy

A five-year-old girl who was taken to Singapore for treatment after being critically wounded in the Australian Embassy bombing in Jakarta will be flown home to Italy, authorities said on Saturday.

The Italian government will send a military plane to pick up Elisabeth Manuela Banbin Musu on Monday to take her to Verona, said Laura Siano, an Italian Embassy attache.

Elisabeth, nicknamed Manny, will live with her stepfather, Manuel Musu, and his family in Verona with the agreement of her biological father, Australian policeman David Norman, according to a joint statement released by the fathers.

"We consider each other family," Musu said. "We both dearly love Manny, and we have come to this agreement mutually."

A custody battle had been brewing between the two men in the three weeks following emergency surgery to remove several large pieces of shrapnel from Elisabeth's abdomen and brain.

When the blast occurred, Elisabeth was heading for the embassy to pick up her new Australian passport after becoming a citizen on Sept. 1. Her mother, 27-year-old Maria Eva Kumalawati, was killed.

Manny, who is now both an Italian and Australian citizen, is too weak to walk but is speaking normally and can move the right side of her body -- initially feared to be paralyzed due to brain damage.

Doctors will be waiting to take her to a hospital when she arrives in Verona. Her medical expenses there will be covered by the Italian government, Siano said. --AP