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UN announces members of panel probing new information on Dag Hammarskjöld death

Portrait of former Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld.
UN Photo/JO (file)
Portrait of former Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld.

UN announces members of panel probing new information on Dag Hammarskjöld death

The United Nations today announced the members of the Independent Panel of Experts tasked with examining new information related to the tragic death of former Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and his party in September 1961.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Mohamed Chande Othman, the Chief Justice of Tanzania, to head the Panel. The other two members are Kerryn Macaulay, Australia’s Representative on the Council of the UN International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and Henrik Larsen, a ballistics expert at the National Center of Forensic Services in the Danish National Police.

The Panel, which will begin its work on 30 March 2015, will examine and assess the “probative value” of new information related to the death of Mr. Hammarskjöld and the members of the party accompanying him on an aircraft that crashed in what is today Zambia on the night of 17-18 September 1961.

Established by a General Assembly resolution adopted in December 2014, the Panel is expected to submit its report to the Secretary-General no later than 30 June 2015.

The Assembly, in its resolution, had also encouraged Member States to release any relevant records in their possession and to provide to the Secretary-General relevant information related to Mr. Hammarskjöld’s death.