Hijacker Gives Up After Forcing Plane to Canary Islands
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LAS PALMAS, Canary Islands — A hijacker forced a Moroccan twin-engine plane to fly from Western Sahara to Grand Canary Island on Tuesday, then surrendered after holding 10 people hostage for hours, officials said.
A police officer at Gando Airport said the man, armed with a pistol, allowed the six passengers aboard the Royal Air Maroc turboprop to leave unharmed about two hours after the plane landed at this Spanish archipelago, then surrendered and released the four crew members about four hours later.
Police said the man, from the formerly Spanish-ruled Western Sahara now claimed by Morocco, wanted authorities to publish a statement on next week’s first state visit to Spain by King Hassan II of Morocco. They said no concessions were made.
In Rabat, the Moroccan capital, the airline referred to the man as “mentally unstable.”
A spokesman for the airline in Las Palmas said the plane was seized while on a scheduled domestic flight in Western Sahara.
Spain abandoned its Western Sahara colony in 1975, and King Hassan sent thousands of civilians to occupy the area. The Polisario National Liberation Front also claims the territory and has waged a desert guerrilla war against the Moroccan army since 1975.
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