An international commission of jurists is to carry out a fresh inquiry into the mysterious death in 1961 of United Nations secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld in an unexplained plane crash in Zambia.

A UN inquiry in 1962 failed to find the cause for the tragedy during the Swedish-born diplomat’s peace mission to Congo, but did not rule out sabotage or attack, while a Rhodesian government investigation blamed pilot error.

Retired British Appeal Court judge Sir Stephen Sedley will sit on the new commission alongside Swedish Ambassador Hans Corell, Justice Richard Goldstone of South Africa and Judge Wilhelmina Thomassen of the Netherlands.

They will review the evidence to determine whether there is a case for reopening the UN inquiry.

The panel was commissioned by a committee chaired by Lord Lea of Crondall, who said that new evidence had recently emerged which should be evaluated.

Unanswered questions remain over a survivor’s evidence that the plane “blew up” before crashing.

And also testimony from witnesses on the ground who reported seeing an attack by a second plane and delays which meant the wreckage of Hammarskjöld’s burnt-out aircraft was not found for 15 hours, he said.

Lord Lea said: “There is prima facie evidence from a book published in 2011, Who Killed Hammarskjöld? by Susan Williams, and from other sources, that there is new information that ought to be evaluated.

“That is why the Enabling Committee has invited a commission of very senior and distinguished jurists to investigate whether there is a case for action by the UN under General Assembly Resolution 1759.

“Why are we doing this? Because we believe that the whole of the truth, in significant respects, has yet to be told. There is now, I think, a following wind behind us in setting up the Commission at this time.”