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UN report bolsters theory that Hammarskjold plane was downed

Former UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold on August 7, 1953. A UN report bolsters theory that Hammarskjold plane was downed on the night of September 17-18, 1961. PHOTO | SAM FALK | NYT

By  THE NEW YORK TIMES

A prominent jurist investigating the mysterious 1961 plane crash that killed the UN secretary-general, Dag Hammarskjold, in southern Africa has concluded that the aircraft may have been attacked, and that four nations—Britain, Russia, South Africa and the United States—may be withholding information that could solve the puzzle.

The jurist, Mohamed Chande Othman, a former chief justice of Tanzania, issued his conclusions in a 95-page report posted Monday on the website of the United Nations, which retained him nearly three years ago to help sift through new evidence and a range of sinister theories that have proliferated in the decades since the crash.

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