Omer Bhatti is Jackson’s ‘secret’ son, says father Joe

Omer Bhatti, the Norwegian rapper who fuelled speculation that he was Michael Jackson's 'secret son' when he sat in the front row of the singer's memorial (far left), was indeed the singer's child, his father Joe Jackson claimed in a US television interview yesterday.

Michael Jackson is said to have told friends in 2004 that Bhatti, 25, was his son: the result of a one-night stand. Asked by NewsOne.com, an online news broadcaster for African Americans, whether he knew that Bhatti was Michael's son, Joe Jackson said:  "Yes I knew he had another son - yes I did. He looks like a Jackson, he acts like a Jackson, he can dance like a Jackson."

Interviewer Smokey Fontaine also asked Joe whether Bhatti, who is also a dance teacher, could be the future of the Jackson clan. The former manager of the Jackson Five replied: "I don't know, I can't say that yet, until I see it happen."

Meanwhile Michael Jackson's children Prince Michael, 12, Paris-Michael, 11, and his youngest child Prince Michael II, 7, are to live with their grandmother, Katherine.

The agreement ends the possibility of a long and public custody battle between Katherine Jackson and Debbie Rowe, the mother of Prince Michael and Paris. Rowe will be allowed to see her children in visits overseen by a child psychologist.

Other developments:

♦ East Germany's Stasi secret police opened a file on Michael Jackson because they feared the singer, whose bestselling albums included Off the Wall, Bad and Dangerous, had the potential to bring down the regime with a concert in West Berlin, near the Berlin Wall, in June 1988. Memos found this week in Berlin show that Stasi agents feared East German youths would hear Jackson's concert and be incited to riot. Although they considered diverting fans with a fake broadcast of an older Jackson concert elsewhere in East Germany, on the night they allowed fans to gather at the Wall then launched a violent clampdown on the crowd.

♦ Whitney Houston and Robbie Williams are set to fill some of the 23 dates still left empty at London's O2 Arena, following Jackson's death. AEG Live, the promoters of what was to be Jackson's comeback tour in a 50-date residency, are understood to be close to signing Houston and Williams, both of whom are also keen to relaunch their careers. ·