Inquiry Urged into 1961 Death of UN Chief

{{Investigators have called on the UN to reopen an inquiry into the 1961 death of Dag Hammarskjold, the then UN chief, citing “persuasive evidence” that his aircraft was shot down.}}

The inquiry on Monday called on the US National Security Agency (NSA) to release cockpit recordings from the time to confirm whether a mercenary fighter jet may have shot down the aircraft.

Hammarskjold, the UN’s second secretary-general, died in mysterious circumstances in September 1961 while on a peace mission to the newly independent Congo, when his plane crashed shortly before it was scheduled to land at the Ndola airport in Zambia [then Northern Rhodesia].

The mineral-rich province of Katanga was at the time fighting to secede from Congo, with the backing of the West and their commercial interests in the region.

“There is persuasive evidence that the aircraft was subjected to some form of attack or threat as it circled to land at Ndola,” said the 61-page report released in The Hague by a privately appointed commission consisting of prominent international judges and diplomats.

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