- Your name is Clarinah?
- Yes.
I know for a fact that...
the villain of this story...
he only wore white.
He dressed in white
all the time.
Okay.
That is what I have been told.
I have one picture of him...
where he is, um,
completely dressed in white.
Okay.
- So, your name is Saphir?
- Yes, my name is Saphir.
We are
in Hotel Memling because...
- the villain of the film...
- Yeah.
...in 1965, he was staying here.
And he was dressing
the way I'm dressing now.
So, first sentence is...
"This could either be"...
Yes.
...the world's biggest
murder mystery"...
Yes.
..."or the world's most idiotic
conspiracy theory."
"If the latter is the case"...
Yes.
..."I am very sorry."
Ten years ago today,
this organization...
and much of the world as well,
was shocked
by a totally unexpected tragedy.
Dag Hammarskjold,
the Secretary General,
was missing on a flight
to Ndola...
and all hope was lost...
when the remains
of the Secretary General's plane
were sighted from the air.
He was, in a very real sense,
the world's first
public servant.
- So this is Ndola?
- This is Ndola Airport.
- It's your first time here?
- Yes.
- Your name?
- Mads Brugger.
- Mads Brugger?
- Brugger.
- Brug...
- Brugger.
Same here.
And my name is Goran. I'm Mass.
- Mads?
- Yes, me, Mass.
- Mass.
- Your name is also Mads?
- Yes.
- That is really confusing.
Mass! M-A-S-S. That's my name.
It's exactly like my name.
- Nice to meet you, Mass.
- Thank you.
But Mass,
do you know why we are here?
I don't know.
We are here because we
are making a documentary
about the death
of Dag Hammarskjold.
Okay.
- After a long time?
- Yes.
It's a cold case,
you know?
Yeah, yeah.
We want to find out if Hammarskjold was the victim
- of a conspiracy.
- Okay.
I mean, you've been doing
your research for a long time?
Six years.
- Six years?
- Yeah.
Okay. What is the title
of your documentary?
- The title?
- Yes.
- "Cold Case Hammarskjold".
- Ok.
You think it's an okay title?
- Do you have other titles?
- No.
Okay. Then,
it means this one suits.
So, you'll have to leave it.
Now for the...
- the beginning of the film.
- Yes.
The scene is, I am in a hotel,
in Lubumbashi.
- Yes.
- In Katanga.
Yeah.
The old Leopold II Hotel.
I am sitting in a room,
playing solitaire.
- You know, the card game?
- Yeah.
And...
while you see me
playing solitaire...
there is a narration.
It's the 17th
of September 1961.
Dag Hammarskjold,
the Secretary General
of the United Nations,
boards a plane
in the capital of the Congo.
These are the last recordings made of him,
because a few hours later,
around midnight,
he will be killed
in a plane crash.
I know that I am speaking
for all of my fellow Americans,
expressing our deep sense
of shock and loss
in the untimely death
of the Secretary General
of the United Nations,
Mr. Dag Hammarskjold.
The death of Secretary
General Dag Hammarskjold
reverberated around the world.
Officially, the plane crashed because of pilot error;
a simple misreading
of the altimeter.
The UN later made
their own investigation,
which was undecided
between pilot error
and a possible attempt
to bring the plane down.
But right from the beginning, there were rumors
about a conspiracy
to kill Dag Hammarskjold.
My first thought,
if I dare to say so,
is that he has been murdered.
Much has been forgotten,
and much has been lost,
in the passage of time.
But the questions remain,
Was Dag Hammarskjold murdered? And if so, who killed him?
Did you know
about Hammarskjold?
No. I didn't know.
Dag Hammarskjold became the UN Secretary General
in 1953.
At first, he was believed to be a boring Swedish technocrat,
but, in fact, he was a flaming and strong-willed idealist.
It is very easy to bow
to the wish of a big power.
It is another matter to resist.
For Hammarskjold,
one of the most important tasks
of the UN
was to protect
the African countries
who had recently
gained independence,
from the tentacles
of old colonial powers.
These new nations
wish to build a life of progress
in full independence.
They look to the United Nations
for moral,
political and economic support.
This made him
a lot of enemies
amongst the old colonial powers.
So, if there ever was a time
where members of the UN
were longing for the death of the Secretary General,
it was during the reign
of Dag Hammarskjold.
Whatever happens,
stick to your guns...
so that you can feel
satisfaction with what
you've done.
Whatever the outcome.
His plane crashed
in the outskirts
of a small mining town
called Ndola,
right on the border
between the Congo
and the British protectorate
of Rhodesia.
It was the perfect kill room.
Isolated and far away
from prying eyes and ears.
Hammarskjold was
on his way to Ndola
for peace talks
with Moise Tshombe...
the rebel leader of the breakaway region Katanga.
People need to know
about Katanga.
How Katanga in 1960...
seceded from Congo,
declared independence,
and a war broke out.
And it's important people
understand that
Katanga was basically
the property
of a giant Belgian corporation
called Union Minire,
a mining corporation.
And it was more or less
Union Minire who installed
Moise Tshombe
as the leader of Katanga...
Yes.
...as a figurehead.
Because right below him...
the big mining corporations
were running the shows.
And they brought in
a lot of mercenaries.
In a perspective,
which may well be short
rather than long...
the problem facing the Congo
is one of peace or war.
Dag Hammarskjold, he wants
to fix the Katanga crisis.
- Yes.
- So he brings in UN soldiers.
He attacks the mercenary army of Katanga...
thinking it would be
a quick fix.
But the mercenaries
are hardcore.
- It's a disaster for the UN.
- Mm-hmm.
A lot of civilians
are killed,
also UN soldiers.
Backed by mining interests
and European mercenaries,
Katanga had seceded
from the Congo,
and a UN lead military operation
to capture Moise Tshombe
and put an end
to Katanga's secession
from the Congo, had backfired.
Mr. President.
I regret that it has been
necessary for me to call again
the attention
of the Security Council
to the problem we are facing
in the Congo.
So...
the Americans.
I think also the British,
tell Dag Hammarskjold,
"You have to fix this now."
- They are very angry at him.
- Yes.
He has moved beyond his mandate. He has gone rogue.
That is why he flies in,
you know, to Katanga...
for meeting
with Moise Tshombe...
hoping that he can
broker a peace deal
with Moise Tshombe
and stop the fighting.
Then, he flies in,
and just as the plane
is about to land,
- Yeah.
- ...it crashes, and he dies.
- What are we doing?
- We are making a...
We are doing a checkup
on the equipment before
we go to the burial site...
- Okay.
- ...of the wreckage.
- Yeah.
- First of all, we need to have
the pictures you have found.
- This?
- There? Yes.
So they keep the wreckage
of the Albertina,
Hammarskjold's plane,
inside a sealed hangar...
for many months.
And then, in 1962,
they bury everything.
- Yes.
- And through this picture
we would be able to triangulate
where the wreckage is buried.
Oh, yes, that should be
very possible. You know,
thanks to the buildings
you can see up here.
I think, that's maybe
the control tower,
and there's some other buildings
and a road here.
Let's go through
the equipment
I have prepared for us.
There are two pith helmets,
because we will be working
in sun,
to protect
our Scandinavian skin.
- There are two shovels,
- Goran: Mm-hmm.
...because, if possible,
and nobody takes offence,
we should be digging
for the wreckage.
And we will find the wreckage
ultimately by using this
metal detector
with an extra powerful coil
that I purchased for us
in Johannesburg.
And, finally, if and when
we find the wreckage...
two Cuban cigars...
But, I don't smoke.
- Bjorkdahl.
- Goran Bjorkdahl.
"What happened was this,
Goran's father was a diplomat
working for the UN.
In that capacity, he visited
the crash site at Ndola
where Hammarskjold was killed.
It was sometime in the 70's."
"He was given
a metal plate...
which allegedly was coming
from Dag Hammarskjold's plane.
..."was coming
from Hammarskjold's plane."
The plate had these strange...
small, round little holes
in it,"
which made
Goran's father wonder.
So, he brought the metal plate
back to Sweden...
and asked
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
if they had any interest in it.
They told him no."
"They told him no."
Yes.
"And so,
many years later,
when Goran's father is going
to a nursing home
for elderly people,
Goran finds the metal plate amongst
his father's belongings.
He asks his father
what the metal plate is about.
And from that point onwards,
Goran has been obsessed
with the murder mystery
of Dag Hammarskjold."
"All by himself,
Goran
does something groundbreaking."
He travels to Ndola
and begins tracking down
the remaining black witnesses.
- Over there, then? Where was...
- This side.
That was that side? Okay.
"Black people were not taken
seriously as witnesses.
And furthermore, many of them were afraid to come forward."
You know,
they were thinking,
If they have killed
Dag Hammarskjold...
- Yeah.
- ...what will they do to me,
if I tell them what I know?"
They were charcoal burners,
living in the forest,
very close to the crash.
Yeah.
So, they were
the witnesses who were...
as close to the event
as possible.
And we could see the plane going
to, you know,
to the airport to land.
But, suddenly,
I don't know what happened,
the lights went off
at the airport.
"They talk about
another plane in the air,
which is shooting
at Dag Hammarskjold's plane."
- You said you heard a sound?
- Yes. Another sound.
- Another sound?
- Yes.
That sound was like a jet.
We just
saw the flash from the sky.
There was a big plane
coming this way
and a small plane behind it.
There was a sound like this,
"Boom!"
There was a fire.
I told my boss,
Mr. Jimmy James,
he was my boss at the time.
He was a Briton. And I said,
"Something happened,
what happened?"
"There were no lights,
the lights were switched off
at the airport."
And he just told me, "Shh."
It came from the east,
because the pilot, you know,
made a long turn
to avoid Katanga airspace.
And the plane continued
towards the west. That side.
And it disappeared
in the horizon.
And just when it disappeared
in the horizon over there,
there was a bright red flash.
- Over there?
- Over there. Yes.
People in Ndola saw it,
many people saw it.
What about Martin, who was here,
manning the tower?
Yeah, the radio controller,
Martin, he claims,
he didn't see it.
Which is strange,
because normally,
he should've been sitting
inside the tower...
looking in that direction.
He said he didn't see it.
And that is not the only
strange thing.
Martin, of course he took notes.
A controller has to take notes
of the conversation
with the pilots.
He took notes,
but for some reason...
he destroyed his notes
the next day.
So, two days after the crash, he had to rewrite...
his notes.
Goran begins looking
for the killers.
Goran goes to London.
In The Travelers Club...
he meets with a...
former American NSA officer.
A man named Charles Southall.
Now it has started.
Hello, I'm Charles Southall.
NSA is an American
Intelligence Organization.
I was a naval officer.
They are basically spying
on the whole world.
I was home with my young family,
and received
a telephone call, saying...
"You really should
come out to the station
around midnight, because something interesting
is going to happen."
And, shortly after midnight...
a recording came through...
from somewhere down in Africa.
I don't remember
where it came from,
and I probably didn't even know
at the time.
But,
one of the watch supervisors
commented that,
"This is history, and it's only
seven minutes old."
And it was the recording
of a man that we were aware of.
A Belgian mercenary pilot...
who we called "The Lone Ranger".
He apparently was up
in a Fouga Magister.
He said, "I see
a transport coming in low."
I'm going down
to take a look at it."
And he said,
"I'm gonna make a run on it."
And then you could hear,
and this was really chilling,
you could hear
the gun cannon firing.
"Rattattat." And he said,
"I've hit it.
"There are flames
coming out of it."
And quite quickly he said,
"It's crashed."
And that was the end
of the recording.
And we processed this recording,
and sent it off to Washington.
And we all went home then.
At the time we heard
this recording,
I did not know...
this was the aircraft that was
transporting Dag Hammarskjold
and his staff and his
personal security people.
Here you can see
the control tower.
So, this spot...
it must be just down here.
- Just down there, actually.
- Yeah.
My big ambition
is to bring it up.
All of it has to come up?
Yes, because
of new technology...
Now we only have two shovels?
- First, I have to find it.
- Okay.
Because of new technology,
if you can reexamine
the wreckage...
it is possible to say,
was there explosives involved?
We will come back
in the morning,
with the metal detector,
and then we will try to sweep,
to see
if there's anything there.
Probably around somewhere there.
Yeah, it must be
somewhere there.
Yeah, it's very close here.
There were never taken
any so called
in situ pictures
of Dag Hammarskjold's body.
Pictures of the body
as it looked like
when it was found
at the crash site.
The first pictures were taken
after he had been moved
onto a stretcher.
And here, in the shirt collar of Dag Hammarskjold,
a playing card can be seen.
And by the way,
this playing card
is not mentioned
in the autopsy report.
But, you may ask,
what kind of playing card
was it?
The first civilian photographer admitted to the crash site,
a man named Norman Kenward,
claims to know the answer.
Yes, I was
the local photographer.
And in the early afternoon,
I would say early afternoon,
I received a telephone call...
asking me,
if I had heard anything
about the Dag Hammarskjold
plane crashing.
- Who was it calling you?
- A police officer.
He said to me,
"My advice to you is,
have your cameras ready",
and with that, I immediately
jumped in the car,
with no other
assistants with me,
and I raced towards Ndola.
How many days did
it take to find his body?
- It took 15 hours.
- Fifteen hours?
Yes. But it crashed eight miles
from the airport.
And there was a big fire,
you know?
I went there with my friend.
But still there was
a very big fire in the morning.
- Yeah
- So, it must have been easy
to see.
As I arrived at the crash site,
I parked my car
and got the equipment I needed,
my camera, Rolleiflex camera.
As I walked along the track,
to the left of me
was a pile of bodies.
All right?
I casually said to one
of the persons there,
I said, "Oh! What's going on?" Oh, he said,
"We're putting Hammarskjold
into the ambulance."
You know,
it's complicated, because,
when they found his body
at the crash site...
It's a very mysterious story.
When they found his body
at the crash site...
- Yeah?
- ...all the other passengers,
most of them,
they were totally burned,
- Okay.
- ...and in bits and pieces,
- all over the place.
- Yeah.
But Hammarskjold,
he was just lying on the ground,
- you know, like this...
- Yes.
...remarkably undamaged.
Okay,
he was lying like that?
Yes.
And then comes
the most important detail.
So, a few days later,
you meet the exact same
police officer
- in the street?
- Correct.
And you have a conversation,
which you choose to keep secret
- for a great many years.
- Yes.
And he said, "Oh, by the way."
He said, "Did you hear
about Hammarskjold?"
I said, "Well, you know,
I believe, he was dead,
or died", or whatever.
He said,
"Did you see him up close?"
I said, "No, I did not."
He said, "Well,
between you and me,
rumor, and I'll say rumor,
has it,
he had the death card
in his collar."
So, I said, "A death card?
The ace of spades?"
He said, "Yes."
I said, "My goodness, you know,
what a...
coincidence sort of thing."
You know.
"By the way," he said,
"Please, Norman,
don't mention that to anyone."
He says, "After all,
it's not released officially
to anyone."
Well,
there's nothing here.
No.
- That's interesting.
- Yeah, what was that?
Yeah, I mean...
That would actually fit
with the map.
If the burial spot is there,
it should make a sound there,
and not over here.
So, yes, that makes sense.
See?
So, just to be 100 percent sure,
should we check out
the other place?
Can you read that sentence
to me?
Yeah. Um,
"In September 2013,
the story moved beyond the realm
of conspiracy theory
for the senior citizens."
Yes,
because it's only old people
who remembers Dag Hammarskjold.
- Okay.
- Now, what happened is,
they have a press conference
in The Peace Palace, where a commission of jurists...
- Yeah.
- ...who have been investigating
the case,
presents their conclusions.
The commission will present
the report on its inquiry
into the cause of death
of the former Secretary General
of the United Nations,
Dag Hammarskjold, in 1961.
The purpose of the report
is to evaluate
the new body of evidence
uncovered about
the death of Dag Hammarskjold.
Not least, thanks to the work of Goran Bjorkdahl.
I may say, Mr. Bjorkdahl,
we have been very much assisted
by the research that you
have made available to us.
- Thanks.
- The commission had asked
the U.S.
National Security Agency,
the NSA, if they had any records
in their archives
matching the description
of intercepted radio traffic
given by
former NSA officer
Charles Southall.
The archive's response,
as we record in section 15.12,
has been
that of three documents,
or records, which appear
to respond to our request,
two are classified top secret,
on national security grounds.
"Yes, we have
the records
you are looking for,
but you cannot have them."
But even more interesting
is the question
of whether a bomb
had been planted
in Dag Hammarskjold's plane.
When the UN did their first
investigation of the crash,
back in 1962,
it was discovered that Dag Hammarskjold's plane,
the Albertina,
had been left completely
unguarded at the airport
for at least two hours
before takeoff,
which would make it possible
for a determined person
to plant a bomb
inside the plane.
But, as the investigators
wrote at the time,
"This is no more than a theory, not even supported
by circumstantial evidence."
"What, nevertheless,
lends apparent substance
to the bomb theory,
is the batch of documents,
pertinently originating
through a body called
The South African Institute
for Marine Research."
"Maritime Research"?
"Maritime Research."
So, now, we are going
to South Africa.
Are you going to talk
about the deeper story?
- About what?
- About what happened there?
- About apartheid?
- Yes.
Yes.
- Because, you know, in 1998...
- Yeah?
...The Truth
and Reconciliation Commission...
- Mm-hmm.
- ...they are closing down.
In August 1998,
having spent more than
four years investigating
the crimes
of the apartheid regime,
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
was closing down.
To mark the end of their work,
they held a final press conference in Cape Town,
chaired by
Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
It is a very special moment...
for all of us.
We have discovered,
in the course
of our investigation,
documents reporting to be
from an institution called
"The South African Institute
of Maritime Research"...
discussing the sabotage
of the aircraft in which
the United Nations
Secretary General
Dag Hammarskjold died
on the night of September 18,
Has everybody got a copy
of these secret documents
from the Institute
of Maritime Research?
How many are missing?
The documents come from,
allegedly,
from a shadowy private...
paramilitary
intelligence organization,
known as The South African
Maritime Research Institute.
And they are...
the manuscript
for killing Dag Hammarskjold.
The full set of documents,
discovered in the vaults
of South Africa's
secret service,
was said to consist of 12 pages,
but the originals
have since vanished
in South African state archives.
What remains
are blurred photocopies
of nine pages,
outlining a plot to kill Dag Hammarskjold with a bomb.
The documents say that Hammarskjold had to be removed
because the United Nations
had become "troublesome".
Among the conspirators,
British Intelligence
is mentioned,
as well as the American Intelligence Service, the CIA.
Do you know whether
the Institute still exists?
Yes, in fact,
when we got these documents,
which was about...
a few months ago.
The first thing that we did,
was to send an investigator
to establish whether in fact
there is an institute
of this nature.
We are of the view that
there is an institute,
though in a different form,
or a slightly different form.
But,
none of the journalists
went to look for the institute themselves.
Maybe because,
the British foreign office,
as well as the CIA,
quickly scrambled
to bury the story
as a piece
of cold war misinformation,
planted by the Russians.
As a result, The South African
Institute for Maritime Research,
or in short, SAIMR, remains
mostly uncharted territory.
It is not impossible
that the account
carried by these documents
is genuine,
but it is just as possible
that they are
a well-informed fabrication.
- Are you talking?
- No. Now I will be dictating.
Dictating. Okay.
What little we know
about SAIMR today,
is thanks to the South African journalist,
De Wet Potgieter.
Back in the early 90s,
he met with a man
who claimed to be
the Commodore of SAIMR.
A man named Keith Maxwell.
He described himself
as commander
of the SAIMR's
military unit, Delta.
And...
what he told me...
He said that...
the unit is a successor
of a 184-year old organization,
first formed by a group
of British mariners.
Preferring
to remain anonymous...
the group's interests
are diverse.
Some orders come from London,
and others are initiated here
in South Africa.
De Wet Potgieter...
takes the only photo
known to me of Maxwell.
This is him.
The leader of SAIMR.
The Commodore.
You see how he is dressed
in white?
White, he is.
I think because...
SAIMR was
a maritime organization...
So they claim to be.
But Maxwell was also...
posing as a doctor.
In some quarters,
he referred to himself
as Dr. Maxwell Annandale.
But he was not a medical doctor,
or any doctor of any sort.
And from what I've gathered
when I've seen the surgery,
there were black women
lying on beds
with funny machines
making beep sounds,
and he was experimenting
on black people.
- Maxwell is dead now.
- Yeah.
But, while being there,
I managed to...
- find the widow of Maxwell.
- Yes.
- Her name is Diane...
- Mm-hmm.
...and I speak with her
on the phone
while I'm driving around
during night time
on the highways of Johannesburg.
My marriage
was very difficult.
That's the way it is. It became very difficult for me.
And I don't enjoy...
the past being brought up,
actually.
Can I ask,
were you afraid of Keith?
Was he abusive?
Not physically, no.
Verbally, mentally, maybe.
Yes.
Did he ever mention the former
United Nations Secretary General
Dag Hammarskjold?
I think he might have
mentioned it,
once or twice, maybe.
But he didn't say much.
He just said that
this chap had died.
And that was about it.
Do you know
anything about SAIMR?
The South African
Maritime Research Institute?
Did he share any information
with you about that?
It was
the organization that
my husband set up for some reason or other, yes.
But what did he tell you
that the organization was about?
- What it was about?
- Yeah?
He just set it up, but, I don't know why he set it up.
If you want my frank opinion,
I think my husband
was probably
a little bit mentally ill.
Uh, yeah.
At the end,
I think he was mentally ill.
I thought,
he was just playing games.
And he used to play games,
but, yeah.
Playing with
other people's minds,
to see what that would do.
And she tells me
some very disturbing things
- about Maxwell.
- Okay.
How he liked to...
manipulate other people,
play with their minds.
Hmm.
- How abusive and evil he was.
- He was, yeah.
- How evil was he?
- Well, you know what he did?
No?
He was running
a number of clinics
- in the black townships...
- Yes.
...pretending to be
a medical doctor.
Surname Maxwell Annandale.
Yeah.
The surgery
where De Wet Potgieter met
Keith Maxwell in the early 90s, is now gone.
Keith Maxwell Annandale,
or Keith Annandale,
or Keith Maxwell Annandale, as a double-barreled surname.
Yeah. But they said the name
as Keith Maxwell.
Keith Maxwell Annandale.
But Potgieter discovers
that Maxwell had
more than one surgery.
Is the old lady,
is she inside here?
Keith Maxwell Annandale?
Oh, yeah.
Was he a doctor or something?
- Yes, exactly.
- Yeah, he had a place
down the road there, but,
it used to be the old post office.
- Oh, he had the surgery here?
- That's correct.
- Oh, that's interesting.
- Was he wearing
- a white safari suit?
- That's correct.
We discovered that he
was running a number of clinics
in the townships
around Johannesburg...
Mm-hmm.
...offering medical assistance to black people
at a very low cost.
Here!
This.
Oh, yeah.
We even have the name.
There's it.
- Yeah, exactly.
- Come stand here.
"Dr. Maxwell." There's it.
And, at that point in time,
Goran and I, we...
we had difficulties finding out
what these clinics
were about.
Why was he running
these clinics?
And people we talk to,
tell us about how he was
experimenting on black people.
I could just find his car
in the whole...
- That's his car there.
- Oh, that's his car.
The clients who came here,
did they seem to be satisfied
with the treatment they got?
- No, no, no.
- They were not?
He was more of a chancer.
You know,
because I used to sit with him
and see what he'd do. You know.
- Quack?
- Yes, he was a quack.
He made his money out of this.
He had a drum there and put them
in a drum
and rolled them in the drum.
He gave them false injections,
you know?
He gave injections
to them also?
- Yes.
- He was a surgeon.
- Surgeon?
- Yeah, as a surgeon.
When you came here...
Plenty of people sitting outside
waiting for the doctor.
I know his name,
because at home,
I think I got...
- Was it Dr. Maxwell?
- Yeah.
- Was it Dr. Maxwell?
- Yeah.
He was an old man.
He put it on the machine.
Flex your hands.
There was a mystery
about him, you know?
Minding his own little things,
you know?
And apparently
he was very quiet.
Oh. very, very quiet.
But, a sharpshooter.
Sharpshooter, yes.
Yeah, they came to rob him.
And he shot one
or two guys dead.
He was very good at firearms.
Even before he shot somebody.
He was an expert in guns.
Of course,
he was a mercenary. You know?
- He was a mercenary? He said that?
- Yeah.
- He said that?
- Yeah, he used to...
He was hired to go to the Congo
and all those African countries.
Did ever talk about
a man named Dag Hammarskjold?
Dag Hammarskjold?
Nothing come into my mind.
Maxwell and Potgieter
met several times.
Maxwell fed Potgieter
lots of documents
from the files of SAIMR,
amongst them, the first part
of a fictionalized account
of Maxwell's life,
entitled "The Story of My Life".
There you are.
It's the story
of Maxwell's life,
but fictionalized.
It tells how, as a young man, Maxwell is recruited into SAIMR,
in the memoir simply called
"the Marine Institute".
At a farm outside
of Johannesburg,
Maxwell is being trained
with other SAIMR cadets,
all dressed in whites.
They are given lessons
in psychological warfare
and the dark arts in general.
Maxwell's handler in SAIMR
is a strict
and stern officer named
Robert Wagman.
At the end
of Maxwell's training,
Commander Wagman sends him
to the Congo
on a clandestine mission
for the Marine Institute.
In the Congo, Maxwell ends up at a secret jungle laboratory,
funded and operated
by the U.S. Army.
Here, research is being done
into biological warfare
and how to weaponize viruses.
Finally, Keith Maxwell,
who calls himself
"Ken Marshall" in his memoir,
has a fallout with the commander of the jungle laboratory,
who expels Maxwell
from the premises.
Maxwell then travels
to the capital of the Congo,
stays at Hotel Memling
for a while,
and then goes back
to South Africa.
Here the memoir breaks off,
unfinished.
Not a word is written
about Dag Hammarskjold
and how he died
in September 1961.
I'm a bit confused, because,
there are a lot of names,
and a lot of people
that are mentioned here.
It is a very complicated story.
- Hmm.
- Maybe too complicated.
The reason for making it complicated is, of course,
the nine secret
documents released
by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
back in 1998,
outlining a conspiracy
to kill Dag Hammarskjold.
"The code name for the operation
to kill Dag Hammarskjold
was Operation Celeste."
Today, 20 years later,
the Operation Celeste papers
from SAIMR
remain a complete mystery.
No one knows who wrote them,
nor why or when.
If the documents are to be trusted as genuine,
it is first
and foremost necessary
to prove that SAIMR did exist as a real organization.
The best way to do this, would be to find other members
of SAIMR besides Keith Maxwell.
Because, in theory, all of this
could be an elaborate hoax
embedded in reality
by Keith Maxwell.
The Operation Celeste papers
mention a secret agent
code named "Congo Red",
who works for SAIMR
in the Congo.
They also tell how
the explosives for the bomb
to kill Dag Hammarskjold
were provided
by the Belgian
mining corporation,
Union Minire.
The bomb fails to explode
at takeoff,
but the agent Congo Red
writes that a contingency plan was activated.
"An 'eagle'
is being dispatched."
Most likely a reference
to a jet fighter,
and just
as Dag Hammarskjold's plane
is about to land
at Ndola airport,
the plane crashes, and he dies.
And, in the end, Congo Red
confirms the job has been done.
Besides Congo Red, we have an agent for the CIA,
code named "Dwight".
He is to meet his liaison
from SAIMR
at the old Leopold II Hotel
in the capital of Katanga,
today the Park Hotel.
There is no trace left of Dwight having stayed
at the Hotel in 1961.
The only real names given in the Operation Celeste papers
are names
of senior SAIMR officers.
We have a Commodore R. Wagner.
Probably the same person
as Commander Robert Wagman,
the officer who was in charge of the Marine Institute
in Maxwell's memoir.
This man seems to be
impossible to track down,
and so are Dr. Pike
and Captain Ian Kerr.
Oh, man...
So,
the only confirmed member
of SAIMR so far is,
Keith Maxwell.
But there could be
other members of SAIMR.
I did manage to find
this article,
which was published
in theSunday Times Magazine
in South Africa in 1989.
Here, a young woman named
Debbie Campbell,
talks about how she works for SAIMR and Dr. Keith Maxwell.
Debbie talks about how she was
recruited into SAIMR
out of school
when she was only 13,
and how she now does research at Maxwell's AIDS clinic.
But Debbie Campbell seems
to have vanished
from the face of the earth.
My quest to track her down
has been in vain,
and the journalist who wrote
the article
claims she has forgotten
all about it.
Luckily, there are other names to work on.
In the trove of SAIMR documents which Keith Maxwell handed over
to journalist De Wet Potgieter, several people are mentioned,
including a South African doctor named Claude Newbury.
Good afternoon.
Hello, Mr. Newbury.
Yes. Hello.
I am Mads Brugger.
I am a journalist from Denmark.
- How do you do?
- Fine, thank you.
And this is Goran Bjorkdahl,
whom you spoke with before.
- Yes. We spoke on the phone.
- How do you do?
I'm interested, how did you
guys get my mobile number?
Dr. Newbury, who is known
in South Africa
as a prolife,
anti-abortion campaigner,
confirms having befriended
Keith Maxwell.
He was a very pleasant person
and very humorous.
He was the sort of person
who made
lots and lots of jokes,
you know,
he could make a joke easily.
One evening...
we were invited to dinner,
and he said, "Well...
would you like to become
a member of SAIMR?"
So I said,
"What does it entail?"
And it seemed to entail
only the investigation,
the research
into sunken treasure.
Please, go on.
What happens that evening?
There was a little bit
of a ceremony.
He had been dressed up like
an admiral
in the British Navy from about
250 years ago.
You know, with the...
tricorne hat and a cutlass
and a naval uniform with lots
of buttons, and that was it.
- Who was wearing that?
- That was Mr. Maxwell.
- He was dressed like that?
- Yes. Yes.
And then, at a later stage,
he asked me what I thought
about the AIDS virus.
And what did he tell you?
Well, he indicated
that he thought it was
a product of biological warfare.
In fact, Keith Maxwell,
was obsessed with AIDS,
writing extensively about
how SAIMR was doing research
into the HIV virus,
and the possibility of
using the virus as a weapon
to kill black people.
Sorry, Mads, would you tell me,
was he infected with AIDS?
- Who, Maxwell?
- Maxwell,
- yeah. No.
- No.
No, but he was interested in...
using AIDS to kill black people.
In his master plan,
Keith Maxwell writes about
how AIDS will play
an important role
in South Africa's
political future.
"As refugees from the disease pour into South Africa
from the north,
they will bring
the virus with them,
and the black population
with whom they mingle
will become infected
on a large scale."
"As a result..."
Maxwell concludes,
South Africa will have
"A white majority
in the year 2000."
That's not the person
that I know.
Maxwell was trying to discover
a cure for the HIV virus.
He wanted me at one time
to join, or to start a clinic
in a building out in Benoni
where he had visualized a...
How do I say? A medical clinic.
Now, he wasn't a medical doctor,
and I am a medical doctor.
And when I said to him, no,
I wasn't prepared to do that,
he seemed to be
very upset with me,
and that was the end
of our relationship.
Another person mentioned
in the SAIMR documents
is a man named Ren Goor.
According to the documents,
he was second in command
in the South African Institute for Maritime Research,
working directly under
Commodore Keith Maxwell
in the early 90s.
"Goran and I went to visit him."
Yes.
And you know what happens?
He comes out of the building.
We ask him if he is Ren Goor,
who was in charge of SAIMR,
second in command after Maxwell.
- Hmm.
- He says, "Absolutely not."
He has never been involved
with SAIMR.
Then, we show him some
SAIMR documents
with the signature of Ren Goor.
I mean, here we have
a document...
Yeah.
- ...signed by Ren Goor.
- That is my signature.
- It is yours?
- Yeah.
Okay.
- So, how can we explain that?
- I don't know.
- How is that possible?
- Well, work it out.
And we ask, how come?
And then he says he is
the victim of identity theft.
But have they used
that identity theft, you know,
for taking out bank loans
- or buying cars?
- No, nothing.
Only for this?
- Yeah. It appears to be.
- But that is bizarre.
Yeah. It is bizarre.
Do you know
a man named Ren Goor?
Yes, I used to know him,
I haven't seen him
for many, many years.
Was he a friend of Keith?
I think they were
in acting classes together.
They did drama.
- They did drama?
- Acting classes.
Yeah, you know.
Put on plays and stuff...
You know, we are just trying
to find out
what kind of organization
SAIMR was,
and what they were doing.
We don't try
to incriminate anybody.
So, we just...
- Yeah. I don't know.
- ...try to get the information about SAIMR.
We also spoke to a source
who said that you did...
drama classes
together with Keith Maxwell.
- I did do drama classes. Yes.
- Really?
- Yes.
- What year?
I can't remember.
Before the 90s?
- Wasn't that with Keith Maxwell?
- I can't remember.
You weren't
a close friend to Keith Maxwell?
- No.
- What kind of drama was it?
What kind of...
- Nothing serious.
- Was it like Shakespeare?
- No, not at all.
- Was it improv?
Improvisation.
Yeah.
That handwriting
under the signature...
is that yours?
- This handwriting here.
- That is my handwriting.
- It is your handwriting?
- Yeah. It is my handwriting.
So, It's also you writing
"Lieutenant commander"?
No. Not me,
but it is my handwriting.
That is my handwriting,
but I don't know this document.
Why on earth would Keith Maxwell
and his cohorts...
Yeah.
...go to this length
with stealing your identity?
I don't know, because,
I don't know the background
of this organization.
I don't know
what they were up to.
Really, I have no idea.
The SAIMR papers
also mention
a South African General named Tienie Groenewald.
"Tienie Groenewald,
former General
and Chief Director
of Military Intelligence,
former Air Attach
at the South African Embassy
in London."
And coming back...
at a particular time
he came back,
and he sort of became
the chief
of Military Intelligence.
So, since then,
he has been involved
in intelligence work,
military Intelligence,
all his life.
Goran and I, we go
to visit Groenewald.
And Groenewald tells us
that he met two times
with Maxwell.
He was neatly dressed,
he was well spoken.
He appeared to be someone who...
who was in authority.
He even has Maxwell's name
written in his calendar.
Maxwell comes
to meet Groenewald,
and tells him
if he is interested in...
Before apartheid?
No,
just before apartheid ends.
- Yes.
- In the last days of apartheid.
Yes.
Maxwell comes to meet Groenewald and tells him
if he wants weapons and money
for arming white people...
- to go up against black people...
- Black people.
- ...like a civil war...
- Okay.
...Maxwell can help him.
He had the resources...
to...
to use violence,
and to supply weapons
and so on and so forth.
But I was convinced that...
he was financed and directed
by MI6 of British Intelligence.
How?
After spending
three and a half years
in Britain,
you get to know
some people involved
in the intelligence field.
And certain names
which are mentioned
in our discussion
was familiar to him.
Which told me, well, obviously,
he knows these people.
So, Groenewald...
was convinced that Maxwell
was working for MI6,
British Intelligence.
And because of that,
he told him no.
And...
they never meet again.
That is very interesting.
What is also interesting,
is that I ask Groenewald
if he has ever heard
about SAIMR,
South African Maritime
Research Institute,
and Groenewald says, "Never."
No. I can't see...
this organization
as really playing
a significant part.
If they did,
I would have known about it.
You have
the Operation Celeste papers,
- right, Goran?
- Some of them, yes.
- They are here.
- Could you show them
to the General?
- Just to get his, you know...
- Yeah.
Yes, of course.
I don't know if you have seen
these particular papers. But,
this is, I think,
four documents.
Here is one giving some orders.
You see.
My question always is,
is this authentic, or is this...
Did they try and create
an impression...
that the CIA, for example,
was involved?
Because it is very easy
to do this.
Let me say...
that you would be very,
very careful,
if the CIA was involved,
of putting something
like this on paper.
If you do, then it's highly...
It's not professional.
Not professional at all.
I don't even know what to think.
But if it was something real...
wouldn't this person, who was
the commander of the military...
like, um...
know anything about it?
Exactly.
"How come Groenewald
had never heard about SAIMR?"
Sorry, did you finish the story?
Are we done?
- About SAIMR?
- Yeah.
- About Maxwell and...
- Yes, for now, because we come back to...
We go back to -
We come back to South Africa later.
Okay, yeah. Okay.
So, this camera guy
was standing somewhere there,
and they took it that way.
You still have
the road here...
No, but listen, it is here!
I'm getting a massive reading!
Yeah.
- It is here!
- Yeah. It's here.
- You found it.
- It is freaking out!
Yeah. We found it.
Yeah, so we found
the spot.
The question is,
how deep down is it?
That's the question.
You can see on the photos.
it's... I mean, it's...
- three, four meters.
- Deep.
- According to this.
- Yeah.
- Can we do some digging here?
- Yeah.
- Yeah?
- Yes.
Now, something
very interesting happens.
It's April 2014.
- Yes.
- A cable sent
from U.S. Ambassador
to the Congo, Ed Gullion...
- Yeah.
- ...on 18th September 1961,
is declassified.
The cable from Ambassador
Ed Gullion
to U.S. State Department
was transmitted hours before
the crash site
was located officially.
The Ambassador informs
that Hammarskjold's plane
may have been shot down by a Belgian mercenary pilot,
identified by a "Usually reliable source" as,
"Van Riesseghel".
He misspells the name
a little bit,
but it's Jan van Risseghem...
a Belgian mercenary pilot.
Here, Risseghem is seen
in his Fouga Magister 93,
the jet fighter most likely
to have been used
for attacking
Dag Hammarskjold's plane.
The only problem is,
Jan van Risseghem is dead.
In Spain, we meet
former Belgian paratrooper,
Pierre Coppens,
who was a friend of Risseghem.
I met Jan van Risseghem in 1965.
He was the pilot of the National Parachutism Center in Moorsele.
And gradually,
Risseghem tells Coppens
that he was the one who attacked
Dag Hammarskjold's plane.
He explained me that
the distance was too long,
so, I mean, he can arrive
to the destination,
but he cannot come back.
And from where
did he take off?
Kipushi.
- Kipushi?
- Yes.
Kipushi.
So, this is...
the old Kipushi airfield.
What he say that,
"I take off from in the jungle,
so I'm in the bush...
- Yes.
- ...on a runway who was made...
by the bulldozers
from the Union Minire."
So, later on, people have taken
the pavement,
which was made
from gravel from the mine.
They had the gravel, levelled,
but people have taken it.
But then, he explained me
another thing that nobody knows.
This is where we believe
van Risseghem took off
in his Fouga Magister...
- 17th September 1961?
- Yeah.
We believe he was capable.
It was not normally long enough
for a jet plane,
but he had a special technique,
you know, for...
...when taking off
and landing with the plane.
He make a small tank
but he put down...
I believe he put under this tank
down the airplane
or on the wings.
He attached an extra
gasoline tank to the plane.
He said, "Then I have
more reserve for starting...
because I push, I push
a lot of power...
- Yes.
- ...to take off."
Yes.
Hold it there! So...
it's night, van Risseghem
flies his Fouga to Ndola,
and there he intercepts
Hammarskjold's plane?
- Yes.
- Okay.
- Was it a small or a big plane?
- A small plane.
The plane was
taking the glide...
- Yes.
- ...to land, no, with full lights.
- Hammarskjold's plane?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- And he say,
"I arrived from the back."
I just from the back I arrive.
And so he shot.
And did he say
where on the airplane he shot?
We saw the fire around there.
On top of the plane.
On the left wing.
We just saw the flash
from the sky.
Yes, because of the wing tanks.
When you have ammunition
which is explosive...
you just shoot on the wing,
and it will explode.
It began to burn,
and then it crashed.
This is, in fact, a picture
of the person who
basically killed
Dag Hammarskjold.
Yes.
Yes.
But did van Risseghem
feel any kind of remorse, any...
- No.
- No?
No.
- Nothing?
- No, no.
Did he tell you who gave him
the order
- to bring down the plane?
- No.
But what is interesting is,
we also learned
that Risseghem was
Belgian and British.
And during the war, he worked
for the Royal Air Force,
specializing in
night-time operations.
And his code name was
"The Lone Ranger".
"The Lone Ranger"
was his name in England.
- In the World War II.
- Oh.
Because he was flying
with a Hawker Hurricane,
always night time,
and always alone.
- Interesting.
- So he was known as "The Lone Ranger"?
- Yes.
- Yes.
And it was a man that
we were aware of.
A Belgian mercenary pilot
who we called "The Lone Ranger".
Was it your impression that
in army circles,
mercenary circles...
that people knew
that van Risseghem was the one
who brought down
Hammarskjold's plane?
In Brussels, yes.
When some people talked
about van Risseghem, I said,
"Ah, everybody knows
that he shot down this plane."
It was common knowledge?
- Yes.
- But how come
that nobody has spoken
to the press...
the media, about it?
This is a copy
of Jan van Risseghem's
pilot logbook from his time
in the Congo.
The only period
not accounted for,
in the logbook
are the days shortly before
and after the death
of Dag Hammarskjold.
Furthermore, the one writing
in his pilot logbook
is his wife, Marion.
So, you know,
how is that to be trusted?
What is that?
Why are you filming?
Hello, Ms. Van Risseghem?
My name is Mads Brugger.
I'm a journalist from Denmark.
Clearly, what is all this about?
Well, it's about...
This is Goran Bjorkdahl.
- He's from Sweden.
- Hello.
No! Not this Hammarskjold
thing again!
It's Hammarskjold...
Do you have
just like two minutes?
I just need to ask you
a very important question.
Oh.
Then, soon after, Goran...
"The UN appoints...
an expert panel
of three persons."
Acting on the report from the commission of jurists,
the UN appoints
a three-person expert panel,
tasked with evaluating
the new body of evidence
in the Dag Hammarskjold crash.
And they learn about
Goran's metal plate.
Remember?
The one with the little holes.
This is a part of...
The plane?
- Probably a part of the plane, yes.
- For real?
That's awesome,
so it's a part of history.
Yes.
Well...
The UN has appointed
a panel of experts who are going
to investigate
if he was murdered.
I'm going to give the plate
to them tonight.
They will investigate,
if it really was a part of the plane.
It's almost certain it is.
And they come to Stockholm
to meet with Goran,
and he hands over
the metal plate.
We are hoping, of course,
that this metal plate
is the smoking gun.
Nice to meet you.
It's a bit like in films,
when people have to dig
their own grave.
I just need a timeout, Goran.
I'm about to be throwing up.
Oh, Jesus.
Can I give a hand?
- Goran, did you have the gel?
- Yes.
Because I'm having blisters.
If they are broken, you know,
it may be good to clean them.
It hurts a lot.
It hurts a lot.
There you go.
Saphir,
you remember I told you...
Goran met with the three man
expert panel in Sweden?
Yeah.
They took the metal plate
to FBI laboratories in...
- the USA...
- Yeah.
and they tested the plate...
and the conclusion was...
the plate has zero
probative value.
It has never been inside
a plane,
it probably comes
from a Land Rover,
and the holes in it...
does not come from ammunition.
- Okay.
- You understand?
Yeah.
It's bad news for Goran.
Amazingly,
we are given permission
to start digging
inside the airport.
But then, suddenly,
someone calls from Lusaka...
and tells the airport
to stop this.
They don't want us to be digging for the wreckage.
Okay.
So you know, all so close,
but no cigar.
Permission has to come
from somewhere else.
I, you know...
My principle is that it's better
to ask for forgiveness
than permission.
- No, no, no.
- No?
Okay. No, in the airport, no.
In the airport, it's better
to ask for permission
than forgiveness.
Isn't that
a bit too early?
It's never too early
for cigars, Goran.
- You're shaking.
- Yeah.
All the...
all the activities with looking
for the wreckage has
really gone to my nerves.
I thought you were
a cool man, Mads?
No, but, you know...
You know the feeling you have,
when you're really close
to something, but...
then you are further away
than ever before?
Is that the reason this story is still a mystery?
- What?
- The reason why it became also fiction?
It's not...
- This is not fiction.
- Okay.
- This is a documentary.
- A documentary? All right.
But...
To be honest, I was never really interested
in the legacy
of Dag Hammarskjold.
Because, at the end of the day,
most people have never heard about Dag Hammarskjold.
And when you get to see him,
he comes across
as a goofy character
from a screwball comedy.
The explanation
is a very simple one.
For me, Dag Hammarskjold
was most of all a ticket
to all the things
I really enjoy.
Tracking down
Belgian mercenaries,
telling tales of evil men
who dress in white.
The ace of spades
found at crime scenes.
Rumors about secret
African societies.
That is why I went along
for the ride,
not really knowing
where it would lead.
For six years, Goran and I,
worked the murder case.
We travelled all over Africa
and Europe,
roaming around in archives
and conducting enormous
amounts of interviews
with elderly white,
liver-spotted men.
We did have a few wins
along the way.
In the archives
of a former British spy,
we discovered
a never before seen telex,
from the rebel leader
of Katanga, Moise Tshombe,
to the Prime Minister
of the British Protectorate,
Rhodesia.
Here, Tshombe asks
for having two fighter jets
delivered immediately.
The telex is dated
the day before Hammarskjold
was to come to Ndola for peace talks with Tshombe.
But no one knows
if the fighter jets
were ever delivered.
And, not to forget,
we found this
never before published picture
of Hammarskjold's plane
after the crash.
It shows a big hole
in the tail fin.
But, when all is said and done, it's just a hole
and, who knows?
So, I began looking
for a way out,
because one thing
I do care about
is my own legacy.
It's because when they found
Hammarskjold's body...
he had a playing card
in his shirt collar.
And...
I met a man who told me that...
he was at the crash site
that the playing card sitting
in his shirt collar
was the ace of spades.
If Goran Bjorkdahl and I,
did not manage
to crack open the case,
I would employ all the old tricks of my trade.
Costume play and role play.
Pith helmets and dressing up
like Dr. Maxwell.
This is also why I hatched
the idea
about employing not only one...
but two African secretaries,
hoping they would somehow
save my shipwrecked film
with their mere presence.
If you ask me, why two secretaries, not one?
- Are we rolling?
- Yes.
I cannot explain it.
So, Clarinah, where were we?
It was an experiment.
In short, I was hoping
this charade would cover up
my failures as a journalist.
But instead, something much worse happened.
All my fantasies came true.
To be more precise, unknowingly, Goran Bjorkdahl and I,
were on the verge of discovering a kind of horror
which would put
all my shenanigans to shame.
There are still
some question marks here.
There's a lot of question marks,
Goran.
Yeah.
I think one of us have
to go back to South Africa to...
study SAIMR more.
To really... You know,
get to the heart of the matter.
You have a list in front of you?
- Yes.
- What kind of list is that?
That is a list of people
who responded to an advert that
Keith Maxwell put out in 1989,
when he was looking
for mercenaries...
and could be willing
to sign up for a...
military operation in Africa.
- For SAIMR?
- For SAIMR, yes.
We have this long list of names,
and we are basically
going through all the names,
trying to find
their phone numbers.
Yeah?
I am calling
because of a list of men
who responded to adverts
from a group known as SAIMR.
Yes.
I believe
you are one of them.
Yes.
What can you tell me
about this group?
Well, we cannot talk
about it yet.
It's a bit dangerous.
So, we are not too keen
on talking about things.
My own involvement in...
the forces that'd be at the time
and the implications thereof,
and what we had to do
and get up to. Well, you know...
I don't know if I am willing
to divulge anything on that.
Okay. But can you
at least confirm
that SAIMR was real?
That it did exist
at one point in time?
I can't...
I'm not at the liberty
of speaking about it, Sir.
What I did, I did.
And what I did,
as far as I'm concerned,
I was doing the right thing.
And yeah.
We'll leave it at that.
You must find other people that are
maybe willing to discuss it,
because I am definitely not.
Where did you get
my number from?
It's not open to the public.
Yeah, since most
of these people have
shown to be unwilling
to speak on the phone,
we will just, you know,
go to their houses
and try to approach them,
you know.
Some may just tell us
to fuck off,
and others may be willing
to talk.
Goran and I, we...
find the street address...
corresponding to one
of the names, a man named Clive.
Are you speaking about
the Maritime Research?
Are you speaking of that,
are you?
- Yes.
- Yes.
Oh, I know, I done training
with them
- for about three months.
- Three months?
And then, afterwards,
everything went basically quiet.
Okay?
I can try and look. I know,
I've got a certificate
that I was issued with.
- From the Maritime...
- You do? You have that?
I've got a certificate.
Could you find that
for us?
- That would be a great help.
- Yes. I can find it for you.
Here we go.
This was 1993.
- Incredible.
- Is it '93?
- It is the real deal.
- Can I take a quick look?
He went to a secret
SAIMR training camp...
- Mm-hmm.
- ...outside Johannesburg,
where they were wearing
white clothes.
I know, Clive,
it's a long time ago,
but can you recollect...
names of anybody in charge
of SAIMR when you were there?
There was one guy from the NCIS,
whatever,
the Intelligence Bureau,
I remember.
- And there was an American guy.
- An American guy?
Curly hair, black hair,
with a mustache.
The American guy
is Robert Cedars.
His rsum reads
like a real-life Rambo.
Ex-Green Beret. Ex-mercenary.
He has worked for the
Anglo-American Mining Corporation
and the King of Afghanistan.
And among his listed interests are parapsychology
and rock 'n' roll.
Do you remember a man
named Keith Maxwell?
I met him a few times.
He was supposed to organize us as a security guard.
But I don't know.
They were supposed
to hire me to...
train people. But, shit,
they never did nothing.
I don't think they went anywhere or did anything.
So, I don't know
what the hell they did.
I couldn't be bothered
with this.
So, anyway, good luck
with whatever
you're looking for. Find out who killed President Kennedy,
do something important.
Okay, so, in '93,
we have you on a farm
- here in Johannesburg...
- Yes.
...training together
with Bob Cedars and Maxwell.
- Dressing in whites?
- Whites. Yeah.
The naval shirt, white pants...
There wasn't any firearms
given to us or anything.
It was more lectures
and that kind of stuff.
It was based
on normal military co-ops.
Perfect.
Fascinating.
Then, Goran and I called
another name of the list,
a man named Alexander Jones.
- Hello.
- Yes, hello, Mr. Jones?
Yes.
And when we phone him,
I simply ask him...
Did you ever hear anybody
discuss Dag Hammarskjold
while you were active in SAIMR?
I see,
now it's starting to get...
Now I'm starting
to get uncomfortable
with the questioning.
And...
Soon after, we meet with him.
And he is the guy
we have been looking for...
for six years.
So, simply put, what is SAIMR?
SAIMR was
a clandestine mercenary...
organization for hire.
Financed by whom?
Financed by foreign governments.
And what was
the purpose of SAIMR?
SAIMR was there to go and...
destabilize certain countries.
And...
No, basically...
we were soldiers.
And what was your role,
specifically?
Were you in the front lines,
so to speak?
Yes, I was definitely
in the front line.
Operational front line.
Hand-to-hand front line.
Fighting front line.
Leading operations,
if you want to call it that.
Did you kill people yourself?
Yes.
Is it dangerous for you
talking to us about this?
Definitely.
Very. I mean...
I could get backlash
from my own people.
You're sitting
with a list of names...
and all of those names
on that list...
are...
can be verified.
But why are you taking
that risk, may I ask?
I think it's about time
that we need closure.
I need personal closure.
Basically, this is...
operational...
headquarters for SAIMR.
You should still be able
to see reminiscences
of military personnel here.
For example... Oh, we can go.
There is the barracks
down that side.
How many people
did it involve? SAIMR?
Anything from...
- 5,000 people upwards.
- That many?
That many.
So SAIMR was a big organization.
In front of us now,
would have been your main hall,
which would've been
your mess hall
and your gathering place.
Look...
SAIMR was very clever
in the way that they operated.
You and I could be sitting
in the same room,
and you could belong
to the medical division
of SAIMR and I wouldn't know you
from a bar of soap.
There would be...
dinners... formal dinners,
you know,
depends on celebrating
different occasions
in the history of SAIMR.
That type of stuff.
Maxwell would come there
in his old 18th century
- commodore's uniform.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- Like a Lord Nelson?
That's right. Yeah.
With a hat... Everything.
With a sword.
Look, they were very sucker
to the 1800's...
British naval traditions
and attire.
Especially the hierarchy.
We wore normal whites.
This a picture of...
- Maxwell.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- He was looking like that?
Yes. That's exactly what
Commodore Maxwell looked like.
Did he wear white
all the time?
All the time.
I never ever saw him wear
anything but white.
- Always white?
- Always white.
This is Maxwell. Yeah.
Very intelligent person.
Very manipulative.
He commanded respect.
If you met him,
you just couldn't help
showing respect
to the gentleman.
- He was charismatic?
- Very.
But also very dangerous.
Dangerous in what way?
If he didn't like you
and if you posed a threat
to him, he would take you out.
- He would simply kill you?
- Yeah.
- Himself?
- By himself, yeah.
And what kind of
operations were you doing?
Well,
it was clandestine operations.
We were involved in coups...
taking over countries
for other leaders.
We were involved
in Mozambique...
spreading the AIDS virus
through medical conditions.
We were involved in Angola
with Dr. Jonas Savimbi...
for various operations.
We gave military support.
So, people were killed
during these operations?
Oh, definitely.
- You mentioned...
- Goran, can we...
I'll just do the question again
and then you can come in?
Okay.
You mentioned
actively spreading AIDS?
There was a unit from SAIMR.
That... One of the things was
that we went into...
- African countries.
- And how was that done, exactly?
- Through inoculation.
- Through vaccines?
Yeah, through vaccines.
Pretending to inoculate people
and that type of thing.
The idea being to kill
black people?
Yeah. To eradicate black people.
You must understand, the concept
was that AIDS was a killer.
It was incurable
at that point in time,
so it was let to believe that
if you infected people...
it was "The quick..."
"non-militaristic..."
approach...
to eliminate...
black people.
And that is something
you know for a fact? That...
AIDS was actively being spread
to other countries?
Yes. To African countries.
Before we continue
with Alexander Jones...
I should tell you about
the case of Dagmar Feil.
- Isn't it beautiful?
- It's fantastic!
Like, home from home.
Hey, Dagmar,
smile for the camera.
I happened to discover...
a advert placed
in a South African newspaper...
from SAIMR...
where they are looking
for the killers of Dagmar Feil.
And...
We managed to find
the brother of Dagmar Feil,
Karl Feil.
Shake it out.
Shake the thing.
My sister came to me
and she said to me
she needed to confide in me.
She needed to sit with me.
And...
- Sorry, I just...
- No worries. Of course.
I have a lot of guilt
about it, because...
She actually sat with me
and said to me,
she thinks that they are going
to kill her.
- She told you that?
- Yeah, and I said to her, who?
And she said she doesn't know,
but she thinks
they're after her.
And she said that they'd already
killed three or four people
in the same team
that she was a part of.
And I said what team?
And she said
she couldn't tell me.
The other thing she said is,
she needs to come
to church with me.
She needs to make right
with God.
She fully expects to be dead
within the next couple of weeks.
His sister, Dagmar,
was recruited into SAIMR.
She had a background
as a marine biologist.
So I believe you got
your matric results?
I mean university?
University results. Yeah.
- How did it go?
- It was very good.
What do you mean by "Good"?
- Well, I passed.
- How well did you pass?
She did mention...
in no particular detail, that...
what she'd studied
was particularly helpful
in the work
that she was doing then.
In other words,
the research element
of what she did
in marine biology was being...
she was using on a daily basis
in this particular role.
But what I found very peculiar,
is that she had
a regular office job,
working as a secretary
and admin assistant
in Johannesburg.
But yet, she was doing all this
research behind the scenes.
But she never ever told me
what it was.
Was it like working
in a laboratory?
Yes.
- In a laboratory?
- Yes.
- Clinical research?
- Yes.
- But where?
- She never told me.
The topic of AIDS research
came up several times,
quite loosely, in conversation.
I never put two
and two together.
And she became
a white supremacist.
And she travelled to Mozambique
and other African countries
bordering with South Africa...
to...
bring vaccines...
to people there.
Countries such as Mozambique,
Angola...
Yes. Swaziland,
Botswana came up several times.
But she discovers
that these vaccines
from SAIMR are...
contaminated,
and she wants to tell...
the police, the authorities,
about what is going on.
But before she manages
to do so,
she is murdered.
And I dashed
across Johannesburg
and got to her apartment.
and I found her white VW Beetle parked in front
of the security gates
of her flat.
I found her lying in the street.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Such a long time ago,
and it is still
a bit of a shock.
- It's November 1990?
- Yeah.
Did the police
investigate this...
- murder?
- No.
They had absolutely no interest
in pursuing the case at all.
- Why?
- I can't tell you.
Then, we go to see
Alexander Jones.
We were at war.
Black people in South Africa
were the enemy.
So it was about
white supremacy?
Definitely.
Definitely trying to retain
the white supremacy
on the African continent.
And furthermore, he tells us
that the purpose
of Maxwell's clinics
in and around Johannesburg,
was to infect
black people with...
HIV.
He had the one in Thokoza.
He had the one in Alex.
Yes.
If I'm not mistaken,
there was one on the East
or on the West Rand.
And these were
research facilities
for them to inject
people...
with a "solution"...
to say that they prevented AIDS
in it.
In the meantime, they were
injecting people with AIDS.
And he was only working
on black people
- in these clinics?
- Yes.
- For almost nothing?
- Yeah.
That's what I am saying. So,
you know, what I mean...
What easier way
to get a big guinea pig?
That you live in
an apartheid system...
Black people have got no rights.
They need medical treatment.
There's a...
white "philanthropist"
coming in and saying,
"You know what?
I'll open up these clinics
and I'll treat you. I'll do..."
this in the meantime,
you're actually...
the wolf in sheep's clothing.
That's gruesome.
Did you visit
these clinics yourself?
Yes. I went to the clinic
in Alex,
where there was
the research facility.
And there was monitors.
There was tubes, there was...
A proper lab. If you wanna say,
a scientist's lab,
you know, a proper, freaky
scientist's lab. Definitely.
Were there clinics
also in other countries?
Well, look...
I know...
Personally, that I know of.
Our base of operation
for this project
was in Mozambique.
- That I can tell you.
- Where Dagmar Feil
- was working?
- Yes.
He knew about Dagmar Feil
and what she did.
She was recruited to do
medical research
in Maxwell's labs.
In Alexander.
And then obviously
she progressed and became
a part of the inner circle
for the operations, and she
went to Mozambique
to fulfill her...
obligations.
And...
when it came...
word got out that
she was going to testify.
She was going to inform
the authorities about SAIMR...
- Correct, yes.
- ...and the spread of AIDS?
That's right.
And...
I think it's well known
in our circles that
it was SAIMR themselves
that took her out.
But why would SAIMR
place that advert?
Why wouldn't they?
- It's like a decoy?
- Exactly.
Another possible spin is,
there was an interview
published in South Africa
with Maxwell and an ensign,
a woman named Debbie.
- She is the young lady?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- And...
Wait, she was at school,
and they recruited her
from school.
Yes. We have tried
to track her down,
- but we can't find her.
- No. I don't think
she is around anymore.
- You don't think she is alive anymore?
- Yeah.
Could that be Dagmar Feil?
No, no, it's not that one.
It's not.
It's two different women.
Her name
is Debbie Campbell.
- In the article, yes?
- No, but Debbie is blonde.
Would the South African...
government,
the apartheid regime,
would they have known
that SAIMR was spreading AIDS
inside South Africa,
and outside as well,
to kill off black people?
Highly likely.
That's why I'm telling you.
That's very...
That's why people were killed
for it.
That's why Dagmar Feil
was killed maybe?
Yeah.
That's why Dagmar was killed.
You're wasting
the champagne!
You're wasting
the champagne.
And after the death of Dagmar,
Dagmar's mother continues
to investigate the case.
She wants to find out
who killed her daughter.
She tried to give witness
about the event
to the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission.
They told her no, because
it was too controversial.
The murderers were never found.
The case was not investigated.
And they would not listen
to her.
In fact, I think,
the second or third time
that she went to the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission,
they escorted her out.
Just the mention
of the South African Maritime
Institute made people nervous.
They would not listen at all.
Then she befriends
a SAIMR officer,
I believe maybe it's Maxwell.
Who feeds her information
about SAIMR and her daughter.
Yes.
He approached my mum.
I don't know whether
it was out of guilt,
or just a prick
of his conscience.
He contacted my mother
and gave her
a whole lot of documents.
I believe they met
several times.
And in there are letterheads of the
South African Maritime institute.
So, this was the first time
that I had ever heard
of that institute.
Not long after, we go to an address in Johannesburg,
where the...
personal belongings of Dagmar's mother are stored.
She's dead now. Dagmar's mother.
And...
in her belongings
we find an address book.
Uh-oh.
- What, Goran?
- I found
- an interesting name here.
- What?
Maxwell. "K. Maxwell".
- You have Maxwell?
- Yeah.
What?
Would they meet
on a regular basis? Or...
Most of it was telephonic.
And then, at one stage,
she was informed
that he's going to Namibia.
He's fleeing the country.
He doesn't feel safe here.
And he handed
all of this documentation to her
and she never heard
from him again.
Maxwell was fleeing
to Namibia?
The country of Namibia
came up frequently, yes.
- Ren Goor.
- No?
Here we have it. "Rene Goor."
"Namibia."
That's Ren Goor.
He was in SAIMR.
He was destined
to take over from...
Commodore Maxwell.
Yes.
And in that book...
Dagmar's mother has made a...
a number of notes.
It says "Police", and then
something has been crossed out.
Then, there's part of a name...
ending E-N-I-E.
And then F-R-O-E-R...
No. This is Groenewald.
- It is?
- It says "Tienie Groenewald".
Wow.
It says "Tienie Groenewald
ordered Dagmar's murder
- plus four others."
- That's incredible.
In a way, it would make sense.
I mean, Tienie Groenewald,
he was a key person...
a top figure
in the Military Intelligence.
No. I can't see...
this organization
as really playing
a significant part.
If they did,
I would have known about it.
He is lying.
All of South Africa
knew about SAIMR.
Everyone in the military field
knew about SAIMR.
The government knew about SAIMR.
That's why we were allowed
to operate
out of South African premises.
Were they taking orders
from South African military? Or?
No. I think our orders,
our main orders,
came
from the British government.
- That's my opinion.
- The British government?
Yeah. Well...
From our British handlers,
controllers or whatever.
And...
to this day I still believe
that we were
a sub-unit of some British...
- Entity?
- ...entity.
Would you think
that's really true?
You know...
three days ago,
I met Alexander Jones.
He seemed very credible.
He doesn't offer
any documentation.
But he sure seems to be
a person who is in the know.
Let's put it this way...
for four years
after I left SAIMR,
they tried to recruit me back
every single month.
- Every month?
- Every month, Maxwell
would set up a meeting with me,
send somebody, stuff like that.
And, eventually it became
to the point of where...
they were indicating
of threatening my family.
And Maxwell... I went
to his offices one day in Alex,
and I threatened him.
I said to him straight,
"As much as you know people,
you've got to remember
I've also got my own team."
I said,
"You guys either back off,
or one of us are gonna die."
So...
it ended on bad terms,
in the sense of it,
because, I mean, I'd had enough.
I had a family.
Once I started my family
I wasn't single anymore.
It wasn't just me.
And I had to take
the responsibility.
So, you know what you do, you...
My view of thinking
is get rid of everything
that can incriminate you.
Or get...
So you destroyed
everything pointing towards you
- and SAIMR in having a past together?
- Yeah. Yes.
But is it bad
for the story?
- "Is it bad for the story?"
- This story.
- Yes?
- Because...
it begins...
with Goran Bjorkdahl and I,
trying to solve
the mystery about
who killed Dag Hammarskjold.
- Okay.
- And...
then, suddenly...
it's something
entirely different.
But I was going to ask,
is the mystery solved?
Or, have you just switched
to something else now?
Or, you don't mind about...
what was supposed
to be solved in the first place?
So...
did the South African
Maritime Research Institute...
kill Dag Hammarskjold?
I won't say...
There was involvement.
What do you base
this theory on?
There were photos
that I can recall
seeing in one of our meetings,
and it was what they used
as a recruitment tool.
There was...
one photo...
where you could see,
where all the trees were burnt.
Where there was a forest,
I assume it was a forest.
All the trees were burnt in it. You could see the ant hills...
stuff like that. There was
a photo of the guys
in their "fatigues"
standing on the ant hills
and that.
And then, there was the photo
of the plane on one side.
So we were given three photos.
What guys
were on the photo?
Maxwell was in the photo.
He was very young.
- Keith Maxwell?
- Yeah. He was definitely there.
Because that was...
I can still remember
the picture.
He was still wearing shorts,
long socks...
and combat boots.
With this camouflage hat.
There was two other guys.
One was
in full military fatigues.
And he had a beard.
Could the bearded guy
be the agent
code named "Congo Red"?
Yeah. I would say 80 percent.
Probably that would have been
Congo Red.
- That would be Congo Red?
- Yeah.
Did you already summarize?
The whole story?
- No.
- Not yet?
No.
Maybe I can get an idea
when you summarize it.
We do manage
to establish that...
SAIMR was very real.
But...
but still, you know...
It borders on fiction.
Some of it is real,
and some of it is very difficult
to prove.
Maxwell meets
with a South African journalist
- named De Wet Potgieter.
- Yes.
And he gives him a lot
of SAIMR documents,
including a...
sort of memoir
written by Maxwell,
called, "The Story of My Life".
It's a fictionalized account
of Maxwell's life.
But...
the part he gave
De Wet Potgieter...
is not the full story.
The last part of the story
is to be found in the
possession
of Dagmar Feil's mother.
Okay, that I found very strange.
Did your mother get this
at one time only?
Yes. Yes.
I think just prior to this,
Lieutenant Maxwell,
or Commander Maxwell,
however he referred to himself.
I think at the point
where he was ready to leave,
he gave my mother
everything he had in hand,
to aid her and help her
to find the murderer.
Because why else would he have
done this?
I want to be sure that
this is actually Maxwell
writing these memoirs.
This is his handwriting, right?
Yeah, I know.
This is Maxwell's handwriting.
Would he have been doing the...
Because some of the pages have
been written on a typewriter,
- and some of them are in hand.
- Yeah, he had one of those old...
typewriters
if you wanna call it.
So it's possible, yeah.
- Would he have done the typing himself?
- Himself? Yes. Yeah
With stuff like that,
he would not...
- Would not use a secretary?
- He would not use
a secretary. He wouldn't have even use his wife.
One thing I can say, if we were
having talks about SAIMR,
and his wife came into the room,
wherever we were or whatever,
he would tell her to leave.
It seems quite bizarre.
It almost looks like
the rantings of a person
who is losing his mind.
Why would he write
a fictionalized account
of his life?
You know, at the end
of his life, he had lost it.
- He had gone mad?
- So, only he would know.
In the part
of the manuscript
of Keith Maxwell's memoir
that was given
to Dagmar Feil's mother,
he provides the context for the Operation Celeste papers,
which suggests that Maxwell knew about Operation Celeste,
the plan
to kill Dag Hammarskjold,
before the papers ended up
in the hands of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1998.
Has everybody got a copy
of these secret documents
from the Institute
of Maritime Research?
This part
of the manuscript
is handwritten.
Maxwell writes about how the men of the Marine Institute
have "plans for Dag".
In the manuscript,
Commodore Wagman
chairs a brainstorming session
about ways to kill
the General Secretary
when he comes to the Congo.
One of the officers suggests
poisoning Dag Hammarskjold
with potassium cyanide,
much to the displeasure
of Wagman.
The agent known as Congo Red
is present at the meeting,
and is just about to open
his mouth
when Commodore Wagman says,
"No! No!
I don't want hours of discussion about possible methods.
I want a workable plan with at least three alternatives
on my desk within seven days."
Option one was the bomb,
to disable the plane,
to bring it down.
That would have been
choice number one.
So that the plane crashes.
Number two, have the fighter jet
around as a contingency,
in the case that the bomb
didn't do the damage
that it did in the plan. Then,
shoot the plane down.
Number three,
have the contingency
shooting from the ground
to bring the plane down,
and clean up.
There is a picture
of Dag Hammarskjold and...
in the picture
of Dag Hammarskjold,
there is a playing card
tucked in his shirt collar.
- Yes, there is an ace.
- Yes.
- Yes, there's an ace.
- The ace of spades?
The ace of spades. And that was
well know
in security circles.
That was the way
that the CIA operated.
That was a CIA card.
And that's why I say
the CIA was involved.
So, that is a calling card
from the CIA?
That is a calling card
from the CIA.
Did you encounter
the ace of spades
being used later on
in your own career in SAIMR?
In SAIMR, yes. Once or twice.
Up in the DRC itself.
And That was also
because of CIA involvement?
Because of CIA involvement.
And I would even go...
and...
Can you switch off?
Next, Maxwell writes about
how a SAIMR operative
plants a bomb in the wheel bay of Dag Hammarskjold's plane.
Then follows
an emergency meeting
in SAIMR's situation room
at two o'clock in the morning on the 18th of September 1961.
An operative has phoned to say that the bomb
did not explode at takeoff.
Commodore Wagman says, "Gentlemen.
Go home and get some sleep.
We'll work something out
in the morning."
So, in Maxwell's memoir,
we have a "Commodore Wagman",
who seems to be the same person as Commodore Wagner,
who signs off on the Operations Celeste papers.
But, then we showed Groenewald
these documents...
and he was totally dismissive
of them.
He said you would never put
something like that on paper.
He said
it's very unprofessional.
It's not professional.
Not professional at all.
I disagree, because a lot
of our stuff went on paper.
I disagree.
So it would be normal
for SAIMR
to put things like this
on paper?
To the relevant people, yes.
The purpose being?
For confirmation purposes,
to say that there is backing,
you know there is an approval,
that it's sanctioned.
So SAIMR had, in fact,
its own bureaucracy?
Yes, definitely.
Very. And they were very strict
and particular about it.
For example,
let's go back a few steps.
When we saw Commodore Wagner...
etiquette is,
you were not allowed
to approach him.
You met Wagner?
Not personally,
but I remember him being
at one of the meetings.
- You saw him?
- Yes.
What did he look like?
He was an old, frail man
at that point in time.
Because for us,
it is totally impossible
to find anything about him.
Look, I know he was
a businessman. Definitely.
- What kind of business?
- If I remember it correctly,
it was something
to do in the medical field.
Then, a knock on the door.
A lieutenant enters,
salutes the Commodore,
and hands him a slip of paper.
"What is this?
"Oh my God, it worked,"
Wagman said,
and waved the message
at the others.
"She blew on approach
to Ndola at around midnight.
It worked, by God, it worked."
There were smiles all around.
Congo Red had delivered.
In the last part
of Maxwell's memoirs,
he writes about going to visit
the archives of SAIMR...
which are,
according to Maxwell's script
located in a shopping mall
in Randburg.
And there, an antiques shop
is to be found,
managed by a man
named Mr. Hadley.
You know anyone
named Mr. Hadley,
having an antiques shop?
- No.
- He enters the shop,
and in the back room,
there is a...
a filing cabinet,
containing what Maxwell calls
"The Travelogue".
It's all the microfilms
and pictures from...
SAIMR operations
in foreign countries...
from I think, '52 to '84.
But he seems
to be especially concerned
- about year 1961.
- '61.
He takes all of this material with him,
and goes back to himself
and burns it,
destroys all the pictures,
all the microfilm.
But that sounds something what Maxwell would do.
That is something
that he would do.
Anybody that resisted
any white form of...
manipulation
on the African continent,
SAIMR was prepared to go
and quell those for a price.
At a cost.
And that was one thing
that Dag Hammarskjold
was totally against.
And he wanted every country for the people of the country.
And obviously,
when you've got investments,
when there's minerals, gold,
diamonds, oil
and all of that stuff...
and we all know
which countries...
He was a threat.
We countered effectively efforts
from all sides
to make the Congo
a happy hunting ground
for national interests.
To be a roadblock
to such efforts
is to make yourself
the target of attacks
from all those
who find their plans thwarted.
He was killed because he was
going to change the way that
Africa dealt with the rest
of the world financially.
And he was a threat.
And who's got the most to lose? Corporate.
Corporate business worldwide.
People are greedy.
People want
what others have got,
and they don't want
to pay for it.
That's why they come to Africa.
Because Africa seem to be easy
and third world.
And now, Africa is starting
to fight back.
And I think
it would have happened
30 ago, 40 years ago,
if Dag Hammarskjold had his way.
Africa would have been
a completely
different continent today...
if Dag Hammarskjold was allowed
to live
and follow through
on his mandate.
- So...
- Yes?
The last narration is about...
"Goran Bjorkdahl...
will continue his work.
Last I heard of him,
he had gone up the Congo River."
"Last I heard of him,
he had gone up the Congo River,
looking for Maxwell's secret
jungle laboratory."
Perfect.