Ban receives report probing new information on Dag Hammarskjöld’s death

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been handed the report of experts he appointed a few months ago to examine and assess new information relating to the tragic death of Dag Hammarskjöld, and his party.

The second Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Hammarskjöld served from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. At the age of 47 years, he is the youngest to have held the post and was awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize.

“The Secretary-General is pleased to announce that the Independent Panel of Experts…has now submitted its report on its findings, conclusions and recommendations,” said a statement issued by Mr. Ban’s spokesperson in New York.

In March 2015, the Secretary-General 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 [UN chief] wishes to thank them for their important contribution to the ongoing search for the truth about the conditions and circumstances related to the tragic death of…Dag Hammarskjöld, and the members of the party accompanying him on that fateful night of 17-18 September 1961,” reads the statement.

The Panel, says the spokesperson, visited Zambia to meet with new witnesses and gathered additional new information from Member States and other sources, including national and private archives in Belgium, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

“The Secretary-General will study the report carefully and expeditiously, and, subject to any considerations of a medical or private nature, will make the report of the Panel, as well as his own assessment and options on the way forward, available to Member States and the public as soon as possible,” adds the statement.