Investigators have called on the UN to reopen a probe into the 1961 death of UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjold, citing "persuasive evidence" that his plane was shot down.
The enquiry 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 plane.
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 landing at 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 high-profile international judges and diplomats.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
The commission cited new witnesses who claimed to have seen a second aircraft shooting at the Albertina on the night of the crash almost 52 years ago.
Several witnesses, interviewed by two commission members in May, told how they saw two planes in the sky over Ndola, the larger one on fire.
Retired British judge Sir Stephen Sedley, the commission's chairman, called for the UN to reopen its enquiry into Hammarskjold's death.
Hammarskjold, who was 56 at the time of his death, is the only UN secretary general to have died while in office and also the only person to have been posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
