Susan Williams
Dr Susan Williams is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Her books include "Who Killed Hammarskjöld?" (Hurst 2011); "Colour Bar. The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation" (Penguin 2006); "The People’s King. The True Story of the Abdication" (Penguin 2003); "The Iconography of Independence: ‘Freedoms at Midnight’" (Routledge 2009).
Between 1962 and 2011, a number of books, reports and papers were published concerning the background, circumstances and cause of the plane crash in which Dag Hammarskjöld was killed. In 2011, the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the crash, Dr Susan Williams’ book "Who Killed Hammarskjöld?" was published. It offered no definite answer to its own question, but it marshalled a striking quantity of evidential material which had come to light in the intervening years.
In response to Dr Williams’ book, Lord Lea of Crondall assembled an eight-person international Enabling Committee - on which Susan Williams serves - and which, in 2012, set up the Hammarskjöld Inquiry Trust inviting Sir Stephen Sedley, a recently retired Lord Justice of Appeal for England and Wales, to chair the Hammarskjöld Commission of jurists to inquire into the disaster. Justice Wilhelmina Thomassen of the Netherlands, Justice Richard Goldstone of South Africa and Ambassador Hans Corell of Sweden agreed to serve with Sir Stephen as Commissioners. All have worked without remuneration.[1]
