'UN chief's plane was shot down'

New evidence has emerged to suggest that the plane of Swedish UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld was shot down in 1961 and the incident then covered up by British colonial authorities.

New evidence has emerged to suggest that the plane of Swedish UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld was shot down in 1961 and the incident then covered up by British colonial authorities.

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New eye-witness testimony gathered by Swedish aid worker Göran Björkdahl supports the theory that Hammarskjöld's plane was shot down by a second, unidentified aircraft.

At the time of the crash, which occurred over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) on the night of September 17th, 1961, Hammarskjöld's support for decolonisation had upset many of the major powers on the UN Security Council, but had earned him the backing of many third world countries.