Police find body in bag at MI6 man's London flat

[Magda Hassan]

Was body of MI6 spy submerged in mystery fluid to speed up decay?

By Abul Taher and Ian Gallagher dailymail.co.uk

Last updated at 5:05 AM on 5th September 2010

The policeman who found the body of MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams said it was submerged in ‘fluid’, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

An inquest heard last week that the 31-year-old spy was padlocked in a sports hold-all and left in the bath of his two-bedroom flat in Pimlico, Central London.

But the disclosure that he was also covered by liquid – not thought to be blood or water – has raised fears that a substance was used to accelerate decay and complicate toxicology tests.
Now, nearly two weeks after cycling enthusiast Mr Williams was found in his flat, police are apparently no nearer to learning how or when he died.

This is despite a post-mortem, a second examination and toxicology tests, the results of which might not be available for weeks.
Sources close to the inquiry say the PC who found the body described it as being in ‘fluid’ when he radioed for assistance. Detectives at the scene are understood to have used the same word in their reports.
Immediately after making the discovery at the flat, the PC said: ‘This is a murder scene.’

But speculation that he was the victim of a professional ‘hit’ was given credence last night after further details of his work were disclosed.
‘He was involved in some very sensitive projects, known as codeword protected,’ said a security expert.

A source said he had the highest security clearance available to an intelligence officer and was part of a secretive ‘cell’ that created devices that can steal data from mobiles and laptops.

‘This meant that only the people in his cell would know what he was working on, and nobody else in his organisation.
‘You are signed in to these projects and once you finish one you are signed out and you no longer have access to any data or news about what is happening in the project.’

Mr Williams – a child prodigy who had a degree in maths at 17 and then a PhD in the subject – was part of a team that created devices which ‘hook’ on to mobiles and laptops.
‘It is an aggressive form of Bluetooth or similar wireless technology,’ said the security expert.
He said such devices would be used by spies on the ground to steal data from the handsets of unsuspecting terrorists, organised criminals or officers from rival intelligence agencies.

‘Traditionally, there has been a separation of MI6 and GCHQ,’ said the expert. ‘MI6 has been full of the James Bond types working on the ground and GCHQ is filled with boffins with beards who are doing their scientific stuff.
‘But recently there has been a merger of these agencies’ work and Williams was at the forefront of that. This was why he was on secondment to MI6.’

He added that Mr Williams did similar work when he had stints at the National Security Agency in America.

The NSA is the equivalent of GCHQ and has been leading the West’s attempts to intercept communication between Al Qaeda cells.

Mr Williams worked for the Special Delivery Team, a unit set up in the NSA to create advanced bugging and intercepting devices.
‘If you just look at Williams’s CV, you know he has worked in some of the most important data-mining centres in the UK and US. His salary is no indication of his rank,’ said the expert.

It has also emerged that before his secondment to MI6, Mr Williams worked briefly for MI5, the domestic security agency. As part of that work, he was sent to Bulgaria on a secret mission.
A source close to the investigation said that on August 23 police were asked to check on Mr Williams’s flat as he had not shown up for work. Just before 6pm, a PC went to the Georgian townhouse in Alderney Street, which has been converted into four flats on four floors. Mr Williams had the top one.
The PC could not get into the house so the letting agent, W.A. Ellis, was called and a woman employee arrived with keys.
She hovered at Mr Williams’s door as the PC went inside. Within minutes he emerged quickly from the en suite bathroom and escorted the woman back downstairs. He then told her: ‘You stay here. This is now a murder scene.’
This weekend, staff at W. A. Ellis, of Knightsbridge, refused to confirm details.
A spokeswoman said: ‘36 Alderney Street is owned by a private company, New Rodina.
‘There has been speculation that it is linked to MI6 or that it is a front for MI6. Our clients do not have any links to MI6 whatsoever and are distressed by the death of Mr Williams.’

[Peter Lemkin]

Gives new meaning to a 'wet job'. Every detail points to not a professional [intelligence] hit, but a VERY professional one! He was, it seems, on the 'cutting-edge' of data mining from everyone's communications - and was certainly killed for some aspect of what he knew......I'll be interested to see if the UK even cares to get to the 'bottom' of this....or already knows and doesn't want it to be known publicly....like what happened to Kelly [and why!], to name but one other, such.

I also see new that he had two passports....only one had a false name......and that a white chemical was seen on surfaces of the flat when the police first entered. This gets stranger and stranger and stranger.....

Personally, I'd not be surprised that one of the agencies he worked for or with killed him - as likely as an 'opposing' one on which he and his 'cell' spied upon! :flute: There's a war on, 'ya know...and all is fair in love and war....[when morality doesn't count]

[Jan Klimkowski]

Gives new meaning to a 'wet job'.

Indeed. :rofl:

Meanwhile, "Scotland Yard" (the sub-editors can barely contain their excitement) has released CCTV footage and wants to hear from a "mystery Mediterranean couple".

Gotta keep Pc Plod, and the masses, distracted....

MI6 spy Gareth Williams murder: police hunt for Mediterranean couple

Detectives investigating the murder of Gareth Williams, the British MI6 spy, are seeking a young Mediterranean couple seen at his block of flats in London

Scotland Yard are trying to trace the unidentified man and woman, aged between 20-30, who visited the Pimlico house late at night, one or two months before Mr Williams died. It is believed they may have been visiting the spy at his top flat home but have not been seen since.

In the first detailed public appeal about the death of the MI6 worker, Metropolitan police detectives also disclosed the 31-year-old's last known movements, captured on CCTV, as he shopped in Harrods and central London a week before his body was found.

Mystery remains, however, over how exactly Mr Wiliams died. Police said he was found naked, zipped and padlocked into a bag in his bath. A post mortem has established no obvious cause of death and toxicology tests have found no evidence of drugs in his body, police revealed.

Police are working on the assumption that Mr Williams was either smothered or poisoned and "testing for any other substance continues".

Detectives also revealed in a statement that there was no sign of forced entry to the property in Pimlico where he was found, no signs of disturbance inside the flat, and that nothing was taken.

The only people believed to be unaccounted for in recent months who were seen at the flats on Alderney Street are the Mediterranean man and woman. Police have been told they were let into the communal front door, late one evening, either in June or July. Detectives want to trace them to eliminate them from the inquiry.

The Cambridge-educated mathematician had returned home from a holiday in America on August 11. Over the next few days he was captured on CCTV shopping in the West End and Knightsbridge, and catching a Tube in Holland Park, west London. He is seen in a red T-shirt, beige trousers and white trainers, carrying a shopping bag.

The last CCTV sighting of him is on Sunday, August 15, when he went into Harrods and walked towards Sloane Street, near the Dolce and Gabbana store.

Police found his body in the bath, after being alerted by MI6 staff when he failed to turn up to work, on the afternoon of Monday, August 23.

Det Chf Insp Jacqueline Sebire, Homicide and Serious Crime Command leading the investigation said: "I would appeal to anyone who may have seen, or had contact with Gareth in the period between 11th and 23rd August to come forward and speak with us at the Incident Room on 0208 358 0200, or to remain anonymous Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111."

"This remains a complex unexplained death enquiry."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/c...ouple.html

[Jan Klimkowski]

This "mystery mediterranean couple" is a blatant red herring.

Here's the official line:

Scotland Yard are trying to trace the unidentified man and woman, aged between 20-30, who visited the Pimlico house late at night, one or two months before Mr Williams died. It is believed they may have been visiting the spy at his top flat home but have not been seen since.

Here's some information about 36 Alderney Street from earlier in the thread.

further sign of Williams’s importance was that he had been assigned to live at 36 Alderney Street – a high-security apartment in Pimlico that MI6 would have previously used to debrief one of its agents or a defector. Like all safe houses, it was functionally furnished – but with a direct phone line to MI6 headquarters less than a mile away. Williams would have been cautioned about who he was allowed to entertain at home.

Are we seriously meant to believe that this "mystery mediterranean couple", visiting a highly secure MI6 safe house, have not been subject to a major MI6/NSA investigation, certainly from the moment that Williams was found dead?

British and/or American intelligence almost certainly know precisely who this couple are. If the couple are foreign agents, then the normal tradecraft solutions will already be happening, and Pc Plod will be told to butt out as national security applies.

If not, Det Chf Insp Jacqueline Sebire should ask the spooks to share their identity.

They'll likely make ideal patsy material...

[Christer Forslund]

The "mystery mediterranean couple" might be a blatant red herring and/or might have been two visiting colleagues from the Mediterranean coast of Israel??
Foreign report: Israel has one of world's largest 'eavesdropping' intel bases

The base, near Kibbutz Urim, is central to the activities of the main Israel Defense Forces signals intelligence unit, 8200, according to report in Le Monde Diplomatique.

By Yossi Melman (www.haaretz.com, 05.09.10)
Israel has one of the largest signals intelligence (SIGINT) bases in the world in the western Negev, Le Monde Diplomatique reported. The base, near Kibbutz Urim, is central to the activities of the main Israel Defense Forces signals intelligence unit, 8200, the report says.
According to the report, the base has 30 antennas and satellite dishes of different sizes and types, capable of eavesdropping on telephone calls and accessing the e-mail of "governments, international organizations, foreign companies, political groups and individuals."
One of the base's main purposes is to listen to transmissions from ships passing in the Mediterranean, the report says. The base is also the center of intelligence activity that "taps underwater communication cables, mostly in the Mediterranean, connecting Israel with Europe."
The data collected at the Negev site is relayed for processing to a 8200 base near Herzliya, the paper says. Other reports say 8200's base is near the Mossad headquarters, which receives the intelligence along with IDF units, the paper says.
The report quotes a former soldier in 8200 who said her job was to intercept telephone calls and e-mails in English and French.
"It was very interesting work, which centered on locating and identifying the 'gems' out of routine communications," she said.
The report says that the base's antennas can be identified if you go to the right websites. The antennas there are lined up in rows, it says.
The author of the article, Nick Hager, is a New Zealand investigative reporter specializing in intelligence and technology related stories involving signals intelligence. In 1996 he wrote a book on the role of New Zealand in international intelligence gathering, and discussed cooperation between New Zealand, the U.S., Britain, Australia and Canada.
Le Monde Diplomatique repeats assessments in Israeli and foreign media about 8200's contribution to Israel's intelligence capabilities.
The unit has several bases, and is described as being the main body for signals intelligence collection in Israel, according to the report and other foreign media. Besides SIGINT, which involves communications, it also deals in ELINT, collecting signals from various electronic sources, including radar.
There are also 8200 units specializing in code breaking.
The unit's great, known successes include the interception of a telephone call between Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and King Hussein of Jordan during the first day of the Six-Day War, and the interception of the telephone call between Yasser Arafat and the terrorist group that hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship in the Mediterranean in 1985.
Hager compares the Urim base's capabilities to those of the U.S. National Security Agency, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters and a similar organization in France.
"However, there is one difference," he says at the end of the report. While those units were uncovered long ago, "the unit at Urim remained unknown until this report."
Photos here: http://blog.mondediplo.net/2010-08-30-Un...s-d-ecoute

[Peter Presland]

The "mystery mediterranean couple" might be a blatant red herring and/or might have been two visiting colleagues from the Mediterranean coast of Israel??
Foreign report: Israel has one of world's largest 'eavesdropping' intel bases

The base, near Kibbutz Urim, is central to the activities of the main Israel Defense Forces signals intelligence unit, 8200, according to report in Le Monde Diplomatique.

Funny thing that for the past week Wikispooks has a massive influx of hits on its 'Unit 8200' page. Way higher than any other - though few from Israel.

There's not much on it either.

[Jan Klimkowski]

The "mystery mediterranean couple" might be a blatant red herring and/or might have been two visiting colleagues from the Mediterranean coast of Israel??

Foreign report: Israel has one of world's largest 'eavesdropping' intel bases.

The base, near Kibbutz Urim, is central to the activities of the main Israel Defense Forces signals intelligence unit, 8200, according to report in Le Monde Diplomatique.

Christer - welcome to DPF.

I agree that it's entirely possible that the "mystery mediterranean couple" were visitors from Israeli Defense Forces signals intelligence unit 8200. Indeed, it's likely that they were from a nominally friendly intelligence service.

If they were say Hamas, I don't think they could have strolled casually into a highly secure MI6 safe house in the heart of spooky London.

However, speculatively, if this is so, and our mysterious med couple were Israeli intelligence, then MI6 and the NSA will already have identified them. The 36 Alderney Street safe house must be crawling with CCTV - even if most of the footage would never be disclosed outisde intelligence circles.

And there's the point. If the charming Club Med couple are Israeli SigInt, (or even Mossad), then the spooks won't want this all over the newspapers, and Det Chf Insp Jacqueline Sebire of Scotland Yard will be told to butt out on grounds of national security.

Mossad's Dubai assassination only became public knowledge because western intelligence couldn't control the release of CCTV and other incriminating evidence to the press.

I bet there are D-notices all over this story.

-----------------------

*In Britain, a Defence Advisory Notice or DA-Notice (called a Defence Notice or D-Notice until 1993) is an official request to news editors not to publish or broadcast items on specified subjects for reasons of national security.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-notice

[Christer Forslund]

Thank you Jan.

Of course I agree with you. Probably Scotland Yard just were too good investigators here.

[Paul Rigby]

Professional hit by assassin or assassins from within the Anglosphere - so why the failure to move the holdall containing the body? Macabre in-joke-cum-message?

[Magda Hassan]

I never know what to think when I hear 'mediterranean appearance' in these descriptions. Are we looking for Zorba the Greek, Barbary pirates, kibbutzniks, suntanned bikini models from St Tropez, Gibraltar monkeys? It is meaningless. As meaningless as saying 'foreign looking'.

What is the point of saying these people visited the flat 2 months ago unless they also visited the flat more recently?

I wonder if the spooks aren't renting from a Russian mafia front company? :elefant: