A defector from the Angolan rebel movement, UNITA, has accused the organisation's leader, Jonas Savimbi, of personally ordering the shooting down of two United Nation planes.

All twenty-three people on board the aircraft died in the separate incidents just over a year ago.

Another defector said that UNITA forces had standing orders to shoot any plane overflying territory held by them.

He said the rebels were ordered to destroy any traces of human bodies.

The allegations were made in videotaped interviews presented by the chairman of the UN sanctions committee, Robert Fowler, who has just returned to New York from a fact-finding mission to Angola.

He said he hoped the allegations could be corroborated.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service