The Guardian reported that a “British run commission of inquiry blamed the crash in 1961 on pilot error and a later UN investigation recorded an open verdict.”

The downing of the airplane carrying Hammarskjold occurred, according to an account in The Guardian, “during the struggle for post-colonial Congo,” which is near the part of Northern Rhodesia where the crash occurred. Tensions were high in the region, caused by clashes between forces of the recently formed government of the Congo and mercenaries allied with “Belgian mining interests.”

Hammarskjold was entering the region on a humanitarian mission, hoping to negotiate a ceasefire between the warring factions.

The new commission will be made up of four distinguished international jurists: Ambassador Hans Corell, former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations for Legal Affairs [and regular contributor to the International Judicial Monitor]; Richard Goldstone, former member of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and first prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [and regular columnist for the International Judicial Monitor]; Sir Stephen Sedley, retired British appeals court judge; and Dutch judge Wilhelmina Thomassen.

The report of the newly formed commission will not have any official status but will be, according to The Guardian, “presented to the United Nations.”

The Guardian also reported that the commission was formed after a “preliminary review” of the new evidence by an “enabling committee including Lord Lea of Crondall; a former Commonwealth secretary general, Emeka Anyaoku [from Nigeria]; and the former archbishop of Sweden, Gustav Hammar.’