FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A judge ordered the boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith to testify in person at a hearing Tuesday to determine who will get the dead model's body.

A Broward County probate judge issued the ruling Friday against the strenuous objections of Howard K. Stern's lawyer, who asked that he be allowed to offer testimony via telephone from the Bahamas.

"He's going to come here," Judge Larry Seidlin told Stern's lawyer, Krista Barth. "The court rules he be here, physically present."

Stern lives on the island, about 60 miles off the coast of Florida, with 5-month-old Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, the daughter he allegedly fathered with the former Playboy Playmate.

Stern's name is on her birth certificate as the father, but since Dannielynn's birth in September, several men have come forward to claim paternity.

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Barth unsuccessfully argued that Stern should be allowed to testify from the Bahamas so that he would not have to leave Dannielynn, who is legally unable to leave the Bahamas. After Smith died on Feb. 8 in a room at the Seminole Hard Rock hotel in Hollywood, Fla., her mother filed a restraining order that prevents Dannielynn from leaving the island.

"He can't leave her alone, and she can't come here," Barth said, claiming that Stern has grown increasingly fearful for her safety since his home was broken into recently.

But lawyers for Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, argued that Stern would not have to leave the baby for even a day, because of the proximity of the island to the Fort Lauderdale courthouse where the proceeding is being heard.

"He chose to be in this court. Where is he?" Arthur's lawyer, Stephen Tunstall asked. "Stern and Anna Nicole Smith left the kid to buy a boat. That's when she died."

Since her death, Stern and Arthur have been battling over who gets to claim her body for burial purposes.

Stern claims Smith purchased a burial plot in the Bahamas next to her son, who died in 2006, and wished to be buried next to him. But Arthur says she is the next of kin and is therefore entitled to bring the body to the family plot in Texas.

On Friday, Tunstall revealed that he also planned to call Smith's ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, to testify on behalf of Arthur in the proceedings.

Birkhead's attorneys were also present for Friday's hearing to further their agenda of collecting DNA samples from Smith for paternity testing before the remains were disposed of.

Lawyers for Stern and Arthur objected to Birkhead's lawyers interfering in the proceedings, but nonetheless allowed them to collect additional DNA samples from Smith with the help of the medical examiner's office.

With the matter of the DNA collection disposed of Thursday afternoon, Judge Seidlin also signed an order Friday allowing the release of Smith's body to an undisclosed firm for embalming purposes.

"We're moving forward," the judge told the lawyers Friday. "I want peace and tranquility not only for the dead, but for the living who want to visit the site."