cealed by the hand of the right arm, which is raised over his shoul- der; this arm, which has rigor mortis, is not in the same position as the arm at the scene, where it is at some remove from his face. Te hypothesis that these two photographs were “doctored”


would be consistent with Major General Egge’s concern that the secretary general had a round hole in his forehead, which had been removed in photographs taken of the body. In a further statement to Aftenposten, Egge stated that a Norwe-


gian historian, Dr Bodil Katarina Naevdal, obtained a photograph of the body and had it analysed by crime scene technicians; they established that Hammarskjöld’s forehead had been touched up in the photograph. Te theory of “doctoring” would also be consistent with the


experience of Knut Hammarskjöld, the secretary general’s nephew, who flew to Ndola immediately after his uncle’s death in 1961. Te Northern Rhodesian police gave him a set of photographs


of his uncle’s body in the mortuary, which showed him with a smooth forehead; but soon afterwards, a young policeman named David Appleton discreetly took him aside and gave him another set, in a manila envelope. Appleton quietly commented: “You may find these interesting.” In this set of photographs, injuries to the head were visible.


Tere are further reasons to reject the crawling theory: there


are no stains left by crushed vegetation or earth on the front of his clothing, which is pale; and he had suffered a spinal cord transac- tion, which “would have left his lower limbs paralysed and made it unlikely that he would have been able to crawl”. Moreover, it is unlikely that he would have lived long enough


to crawl away from the point of impact or subsequent fire, which would have taken some time. Dr Vanhegan made an interesting discovery. In one of the


photographs at the scene, there is “a peculiar, almost circular, area of pallor associated with the right orbit” – that is, a whited-out area around the eye. Tis is seen again in one of the photographs at the mortuary: a peculiar circular area of sharply defined pallor associated with the right orbit, within which there appears to be an “abrasion” in the region of the mid-eyebrow. Unable to explain these areas of pallor in the two affected


photographs, Dr Vanhegan offers an intriguing hypothesis: “Tis could be a crude attempt photographically to “brush out” detail. Presumably the extreme pallor has developed over the 50 years


since the photographs were taken and then re-touched, if this is what happened. At the time, any such re-touching presumably achieved a natural effect, since there is no reference in any documentation to photographs with a marked contrast in colour around the right eye. It is not possible to compare the images showing this pallor with


any other image of the right side of his face, since the right side of the face is not shown in the other four photographs. Te other two photographs at the scene were taken from Hammarskjöld’s left, with the effect of obscuring the right side of the face. In the other two photographs at the mortuary, one shows the back of his head and, in the other, the right side of the face is con-


Expert No. 2 My second expert is Peter Franks, LLB, a highly respected firearms and ballistic consultant, who is also a qualified lawyer. Mr Franks has trained military and police units around the world and is qualified to comment on all aspects of firearms, ranging from the reconstruction of crime scenes to comments on gunshot injuries. For the purpose of his evaluation, Mr Franks studied the bal-


listics and ammunition report written by R. H. Els for the Forensic Ballistics Department in the Northern Rhodesia Police, which looks at the firearms and 342 bullets found at the crash site and the photographs of the firearms and ammunition recovered. Mr Franks also examined the x-rays of the bodies with bullets


and cartridge fragments; the medical report where there is discus- sion of gunshot wounds; photographs of the deceased; and plans and photographs of the scene. He was conscious, however, that he was reliant on material


that was second-hand, none of which he was able to check out himself. If any of this information was inaccurate, it would affect his conclusions. In the photographs of Hammarskjöld, he examined the visible


injuries that might be construed as gunshot wounds and concluded that most of the wounds were produced by cuts of blunt trauma injury. Te only visible injury which could be a bullet or projectile wound, is the one under the secretary general’s chin. “Te wound under the chin is upon close examination elongated


(oval) and not round, and whilst that does not preclude it from be- ing a bullet wound, I am not attracted to the idea that this was so.” Mr Franks noted that a Smith & Wesson (M12 airweight)


revolver was discovered close to Hammarskjöld, which confirms the rumour that there was a revolver near the secretary general. It was strange, thought Mr Franks, that the revolver had been


severely damaged by heat, yet Hammarskjöld himself was unaf- fected by the blaze. It was also strange that no weapon was found with Sergeant Harold Julien, chief of security.


New African | October 2011 | 61


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