Did The British Cover Up The Assassination Of A UN Secretary General?

Stunning new article from the Guardian that alleges that UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, who was killed when his plane crashed in Northern Rhodesia in 1961, was assassination. Moreover, the British covered the assassination up after the fact, and left an American crash survivor to die in a hospital without proper medical care.

A British-run commission of inquiry blamed the crash in 1961 on pilot error and a later UN investigation largely rubber-stamped its findings. They ignored or downplayed witness testimony of villagers near the crash site which suggested foul play. The Guardian has talked to surviving witnesses who were never questioned by the official investigations and were too scared to come forward.
The residents on the western outskirts of the town of Ndola described Hammarskjöld's DC6 being shot down by a second, smaller aircraft. They say the crash site was sealed off by Northern Rhodesian security forces the next morning, hours before the wreckage was officially declared found, and they were ordered to leave the area.

The amateur investigator concluded:

• Hammarskjöld's plane was almost certainly shot down by an unidentified second plane.
• The actions of the British and Northern Rhodesian officials at the scene delayed the search for the missing plane.
• The wreckage was found and sealed off by Northern Rhodesian troops and police long before its discovery was officially announced.
• The one survivor of the crash could have been saved but was allowed to die in a poorly equipped local hospital.
• At the time of his death Hammarskjöld suspected British diplomats secretly supported the Katanga rebellion and had obstructed a bid to arrange a truce.
• Days before his death, Hammarskjöld authorised a UN offensive on Katanga – codenamed Operation Morthor – despite reservations of the UN legal adviser, to the fury of the US and Britain.

 The details in the story simply must be read to be believed. Now, it is not clear who was in that second plane and more importantly who was behind the attack. The implications are strong, and the situation at the time at the United Nations left many with motives. More pressing is the British role, or at least the role of the local British soldiers, in covering up the crash site. This might be a fifty year old case, but one would imagine that this article will lead to the British not being allowed to sit at the popular kids' table at the UN cafeteria.