Has Angelina bought a baby?

Angelina Jolie was said last night to have bought a Russian baby. The actress is believed to have paid a poverty-stricken mother in Moscow for the boy.

Miss Jolie, who already has an adopted son from Cambodia, said last year that she wanted 'a rainbow of children' from around the world.

Allegations about the latest transaction were reported in the Moscow newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets.

It had been thought that she was planning to adopt a sevenmonthold boy called Gleb.

She had met and cuddled the yoingster during a visit to a nursery in Moscow last month.

But the newspaper said she went off the idea after learning it could take up to six months to adopt Gleb and she used the trip to buy a newborn baby from a Georgian woman instead.

'The boy's mother got a hefty amount of money for it,' the newspaper reported.

'Miss Jolie made a secret agreement with her and she got her baby several days after it (the money) was delivered. The

baby is already in America with her and it was registered in its new mother's name to avoid a lot of paperwork.'

Although the deal is likely to provoke protests that Miss Jolie should have gone through official channels, it is believed Russian adoption officials will visit the baby at her Hollywood home to ensure he is being looked after.

Twice-married Miss Jolie, 29, who brought the video game heroine Lara Croft to the big screen in the Tomb Raider movies, lives part of the year in a £2million Surrey mansion. She is one of Hollywood's most outspoken and quirky actresses.

She and ex-husband Billy Bob Thornton used to wear vials of each other's blood and she once announced she was a fan of sado-masochism and casual sex.

She adopted her first son, Maddox, now three, while still married to Thornton. But they separated soon after as she claimed he was not involved enough with the baby.