Courtesy of Dr. Susan Williams:
Investigation into the conditions and circumstances resulting in the tragic death of Dag Hammarskjöld and of the members of the party accompanying him
Attached is the 2024 Report of Justice Mohamed Chande Othman, who was appointed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres to lead the investigation into the tragic plane crash in September 1961 that killed UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and the 15 people accompanying him. The 2024 Report has just been published and is available in the six official languages of the UN. The English-language version is attached.
The release of the 2024 Report is accompanied by a timely video:
The 2024 Report advances the collective state of knowledge. At this juncture, Justice Othman assesses it to remain plausible that an external attack or threat was a cause of the crash. Justice Othman notes that the alternative hypotheses that appear to remain available are that the crash resulted from sabotage, or unintentional human error.
The 2024 Report is not able to reach a conclusion regarding the ultimate cause of the crash. It states that the primary obstacle to reaching any such definitive conclusion is the lack of full disclosure of specific and crucial information by a small number of UN Member States. The report states: ‘the three key Member States that are most likely to hold significant undisclosed information, being South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, have not disclosed any new material information since 2017.’ (p 71, para 299)
The 2024 Report makes six recommendations, which are set out in the conclusion and have the support of Secretary General Guterres. The first of these recommends that the UN investigation should continue.