By Borja Suarez
LAS PALMAS, Spain (Reuters) - Passengers overpowered a suspected armed hijacker who had commandeered a Mauritanian plane on Thursday when he was knocked off his feet during a hard landing, a source close to the Mauritanian presidency said.
The Air Mauritania Boeing 737 was on an internal flight in Mauritania when the hijacker, armed with pistols, demanded to be flown to France, officials said. The pilot landed in Spain's Canary Islands instead, where Spanish police arrested the man.
"When the pilot landed he deliberately braked very hard. The man fell to the ground and was jumped on by passengers. He fired two bullets but there are no serious injuries," the Mauritanian source told Reuters.
A spokeswoman for the Spanish emergency services said 20 people suffered minor cuts and bruises but added she knew of nobody being injured by gunfire, as one emergency services source had reported earlier.
Spain's Interior Ministry said security forces arrested the hijacker and freed all 71 passengers and eight crew after the plane touched down at Gando airport on the island of Gran Canaria. Media reported the hijacker was North African.
Air Mauritania's Director General Mohamed Ould El Moctar said the crew told him nobody was hurt and that the hijacker had acted alone.
"The lone hijacker was armed with two pistols but it is not clear whether these were real or not," he told Al Jazeera television. Continued...
A hijacked Air Mauritania Boeing 737 passenger plane has landed on Spain's Canary Islands after making a fuel stop in Western Sahara, officials in Mauritania said today. It was hijacked after the takeoff from the Nouakchott airport.

While on the plane, the man demanded it to be flown to France to seek asylum.

The 71 passengers and eight person crew were let out when the hijacker landed the plane in Las Palmas. Several people were wounded by a gun and the suspect was arrested.

Reports say that it is unconfirmed as to what the man's motive was. Mauritanian police are still investigating.