Secretary-general ‘was shot out of sky by mystery aircraft’
UNITED NATIONS: A United Nations investigation into the death in office of the secretarygeneral Dag Hammarskjold has concluded that his flight was probably brought down deliberately and that the release of classified British and US radio intercepts could solve the mystery.
The report was given to Antonio Guterres, the current secretary-general, last month. It found a ‘‘significant amount of evidence’’ that an aircraft brought down the flight carrying Hammarskjold, 56, to what was then Northern Rhodesia in 1961. He was on a peace mission.
He died immediately in the crash outside a tiny airfield along with 14 others on his flight. One survivor held on for a few days. Hammarskjold was the second UN secretary-general and was described by John F Kennedy, then US president, as ‘‘the greatest statesman of our century’’.
A British inquiry pointed to pilot error. A UN investigation failed to reach a verdict.
The latest investigation was ordered in 2015 after research including the 2011 book
turned up ‘‘persuasive evidence’’ that the flight was shot down.
Among the evidence made available was undisclosed information provided by the US, British, Belgian, Canadian and German governments.
The latest report revealed that radio traffic was intercepted by British and US intelligence and that its contents, still unknown, most probably held the key.
‘‘The deeper we have gone into the searches, the more relevant information has been found,’’ Mohamed Chande Othman, a former Tanzanian chief justice, wrote in the report’s summary seen by The Guardian. ‘‘It appears plausible that external attack or threat may have been the cause of the crash.’’ He said the ‘‘burden of proof’’ was on members, including Britain and the US, ‘‘to show that they have conducted a full review of records and archives ... including those that remain classified, for potentially relevant information’’.
There have been suspicions that Hammarskjold was murdered
"It appears plausible that external attack or threat may have been the cause of the crash."
Mohamed Chande Othman, former Tanzanian chief justice and report co-author
since he died on his way to negotiate a ceasefire in the mineral rich breakaway republic of Katanga shortly after Congo’s independence from Belgium. The plane was said to have been riddled with bullets that the British investigation put down to ammunition exploding in the crash.
Harry Truman, the former US president, told reporters: ‘‘He was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said: ‘When they killed him’.’’
Theories identified his killers as US agents or Belgian mercenaries.
At a listening post in Cyprus one US intelligence officer claims to have heard ‘‘I’ve hit it. There are flames. It’s going down. It’s crashing.’’ Another heard voices identifying it as it was coming in to land and saying: ‘‘The Americans shot down the UN plane.’’