“He didn’t know. Jan told me: ‘I made the mission and that’s all. And then I had to go back and save my life.’ ”

Pierre Coppens — Former Paratrooper and longtime friend of Jan Van Risseghem

Jan Van Risseghem

February 23 2019 — Jan Henri van Risseghem de Santieron de Saint Clément (Plötzky – Germany, September 3 1923 — Moorsele – Belgium, January 29, 2007) was a Belgian pilot and mercenary. Many experts suspect that he caused the death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold — as well as fifteen other people on the plane — on September 18 1961. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

RELATED POST: Dag Hammarskjold — Belgian Intel Agency Fabricated Mercenary Alibi

RELATED: EXCLUSIVE — Belgian Mercenary Killed Dag Hammarskjold // UPDATE — Story Confirmed!

RELATED POST: UN REPORT — External Attack Probably Caused Dag Hammarskjold’s Plane to Crash

RELATED POST: NEVER FORGET — Suspicious Aviation Tragedies: 1961 — Ndola United Nations DC-6 crash [UPDATE: UN REPORT Sept 26 2017]

UPDATE (June 12 2019) — Victor Rosez is a direct witness to several events that may help to solve Hammarskjold’s Cold case.

Rosez posted an important comment on this blog last night. I have therefore added one section, titled “Recollection from a Direct Witness”, at the end of this post.

END of UPDATE

Jan Van Risseghem was born in Plötzky, Germany, on September 3 1923 — the son of a Belgian father and a British mother.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined his brother Maurice in the French resistance. Eventually, he moved to Portugal and then to England where he volunteered to join the British army.

In September 1942,  he became a pilot with the Royal Air Force. He was decorated by Britain for his services in the second world war.

After the war he married an English woman. He worked for the Belgian national airliner Sabena from 1946 untill 1960, when he was — rather surprisingly — dismissed for “incompetence”

In May 1961, he went to Katanga, a rebellious province of Congo that tried — with some help from the Belgian government — to secede from the newly independent Congo.

In Katanga, Van Risseghem was in charge of the small air force AVIKAT. He was the pilot of President Moïse Tshombé and flew with a Fouga Magister CM-170, which was converted into a fighter plane.

The UN peacekeeping mission, which opposed the Katangese secession, captured Van Risseghem on August 28 1961.

Van Risseghem was expelled from the country and repatriated to Belgium on September 8 1961.

On September 16 1961, he returned to Katanga where he arrived before noon on September 7, about twelve hours before the tragedy that killed Hammarskjold and the sixteen other people on board of his UN plane.

Van Risseghem remained in Africa until 1963, first in the service of the South African Air Force (SAAF) and then with the  Rhodesian Air Force (RhAF), until his own plane — Dragon Rapide — was destroyed in an air bombardment of the UN.

Back in Belgium, he became a pilot for the paratroopers at the Moorsele airfield, later moved to Deurne.

Until his death Van Risseghem officially denied any involvement in the crash of Hammarskjold’s plane (September 18 1961).

In an interview with an aviation historian Leif Hellström in the 1990s, he discussed the crash and various details of the official enquiry.

He emphasised that he was not in South Africa at the time it happened, and described the idea of an attack as “fairy tales”.

Prime Suspect from day One

As news of Hammarskjöld’s death emerged, the RAF veteran was apparently the obvious suspect.

He was named as the possible attacker by the US ambassador to the Congo in a secret cable sent on the day of Hammarskjöld’s death.

Confession to a “Brother in Arms”

In November 2017, a very credible source told INTEL TODAY that Jan Van Risseghem was the Belgian mercenary responsible for the death of Dag Hammarskjold.

Pierre Coppens met Van Risseghem in 1965, when he was flying for a parachute training centre in Belgium.

Jan Van Risseghem (Center) – Pierre Copppens (Right)

Over several conversations, he claimed, the pilot detailed how he overcame various technical challenges to down the plane, unaware of who was travelling inside.

False Alibi made by Belgian Intel Agency

The Belgian State Security Services — VSSE — had provided Jan Van Risseghem with a rock solid alibi.

However, newly released official documents from the VSSE show that this alibi is a pure fabrication.

Recollection from a Direct Witness [Victor Rosez]

“Indeed, as I mentioned several times to Pierre Coppens and Bruno Struys and also to judge Othmans, there was a kind of fabrication in the alibi of Jan Van Risseghem.

He [Jan Van Risseghem] arrived at Ndola airport at September 17th.

Bob Denard came two days earlier and helped to catch the 24 Irish UN troops at Elisabethville. I was also engaged in that battle.

On September 4th, 1961 I have seen at the small runway (800m) of Kipushi the first of a series of Do28. The K3016.

I believe that this was the plane that was used to shoot down the Albertina of the SG Dag Hammarskjöld just past midnight at 00:15 am near to Ndola.

The big side doors allowed the installation of a door gunner. This was an experimental technique already used by the French in Algeria.

In the immediate proximity of Ndola airport there was also a small unit of French mercenaries waiting to intercept the Albertina after landing. This appeared not to be necessary. The unit went to the crash site to check out what happened and after that disappeared in the night. They left their camo fatigues at the police station of Ndola to wear civilian clothes. However the fatigues were shown to me by a friend police inspector at Ndola, later on. The fatigues were not the classic Belgian Dennison models but rather the Algerian version used by the OAS.”

Quick Analysis — A DO-28A has a maximum range of 1.220 km. The distance between Kipushi and Ndola, there and back, is approximately 400 km.

This plane is a Short Take-off and Landing (STOL) plane which could have operated easily from the Kipushi airfield.

Several sources have suggested that KA-3016 was at Kipushi at the time of the attack.

Moreover, Torben Gülstorff [German links to the Hammarskjöld case] has already pointed out that “a closer look at the transfer of the DO-28As brings some suspicious details to light which support the impression that there was something special about KA-3016.”

REFERENCES

RAF veteran ‘admitted 1961 killing of UN secretary-general’ — The Guardian (January 12 2019)

Evidence may lead to new probe in 1961 death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld — CBC NEWS

Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane may have been shot down, ambassador warned — Guardian

Hammarskjöld — Whodunit? Not the Guy In the Movie — Times of Israel

Belgische inlichtingendiensten geven Hammarskjöld-documenten vrij (Bood de Staatsveiligheid piloot Jan van Risseghem een alibi?) by Bruno Struys — De Morgen

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Biography — Jan Van Risseghem [Prime Suspect in Hammarskjold Cold case]

Biography — Jan Van Risseghem [Prime Suspect in Hammarskjold Cold case] // UPDATE