Madagascan leader's jet grounded by soldier's shots

ANTANANARIVO - A soldier pumped 13 shots into the plane of Madagascan President Marc Ravalomanana, forcing him to leave Thursday for a summit in Cuba on a commercial flight, the government said.



Presidential spokesman Moxe Ramandimbilahatra said the hapless guard imagined seeing someone approach "Force One" when he fired a volley of shots into it a few days ago.

"So the Madagascan delegation traveling to the Cuban summit of Non-Aligned countries had to resort to a plane from the national company Air Madagascar," he told Reuters.

"The soldier was hallucinating...Very upset by what he did, he tried to kill himself by taking poison but he failed," said another security official Lucien Victor Razakanirina.

The soldier told the local media: "I noticed somebody approaching the presidential plane and I fired on him after shouting out a warning because he was about to cross into the sensitive zone."