‘Significant evidence’ UN boss’s plane was shot down

There is a “significant amount of evidence” a plane carrying then UN boss Dag Hammarskjold, which crashed in central Africa in 1961, was brought down by another aircraft, a new UN report has claimed.

According to The Guardian, the report delivered to current UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month includes previously undisclosed information provided by the American, British, Belgian, Canadian and German governments.

The new claims centre on classified radio intercepts recorded by the US and UK governments in the area at the time. They appear to point to the involvement of another aircraft in the crash.

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The report's author, former Tanzanian chief justice Mohamed Chande Othman, was said to be “indebted for the assistance that he received, which uncovered a large amount of valuable new information”, the paper reports.

Hammarskjold, a Swedish diplomat who was appointed head of the UN in 1953, was on a mission to the Congo to broker a peace deal in the Katanga region following a rebellion backed by mining interests and European mercenaries when his plane crashed, killing him and 15 others.

A British inquiry at the time pointed to pilot error and a 1962 UN commission reached an open verdict. However, the crash remains one of aviation's biggest unsolved cases and, following numerous private investigations, a 2015 UN panel agreed there was enough new material to warrant reopening the case.