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

[Jan Klimkowski]

Shock horror!

New testimony about suspected sexual deviancy!

Titilation for the tabloids to aid the coverup!

It is curious that the former landlords have suddenly chosen to tell this tale.

There are many potential motivations, and their account is absent of hard evidence and almost impossible to prove or disprove.

Note Williams rented this room when he was already working for the secret state, at GCHQ. Presumably, his landlords would have been, ahem, security vetted.

Let's assume, entirely hypothetically, that the tale is true.

Perhaps it ended up in Williams' MI6 file and psychological profile.

To be used in extremis only.

At the pertinent time.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

MI6 officer Gareth Williams found tied to bedposts by landlords, inquest told

Spy shouted for help at 1.30am and told Cheltenham couple: 'I just wanted to see if I could get myself free'

Caroline Davies

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 April 2012 14.18 BST



The MI6 officer found dead in a padlocked bag in the bath at his flat once had to be rescued by his landlords after they found him tied to his bedposts, an inquest heard.

Jennifer Elliot, who rented a flat in Cheltenham to Gareth Williams while he worked at GCHQ, said she and her husband heard him shouting for help one night at 1.30am about three years ago.

When the couple went into the flat, they were shocked to find him in boxer shorts on his back on the bed "with both hands tied with material attached to the headboard".

"He said: 'I just wanted to see if I could get myself free,'" she said in a statement read to the court. "He was very embarrassed and panicky and apologising."

She said his hands were tied with some kind of material which was "tight enough to cut his wrists".

"My husband said: 'What the bloody hell are you doing?' He said he was just messing about to see if he could get free."

Her husband cut him free and said: "Gareth, we cannot have you doing this here," the statement went on. Williams apologised and said it would not happen again, said Elliot, and offered the couple more rent, which they declined.

The statement continued: "We never spoke to anyone about it." Elliot said Williams did not look aroused but the couple decided it "was more likely to be sexual rather than escapology". Her husband believed he had secured himself using a slip knot.

She added: "The main concern was what would have happened if we had been away."

Questions were raised over the police investigation into the death of the 31-year-old, as the inquest heard detectives found no connection with his work.

Police did not retrieve electronic equipment used by the codes and ciphers expert from GCHQ in Cheltenham until five days after his death. Equipment used by Williams at MI6 HQ in London took four days, Westminster coroners court heard.

Detectives relied on "assurances" from senior security intelligence services (SIS) staff that equipment had not been tampered with, Anthony O'Toole, a lawyer for Williams's family, told the inquest.

No formal witness statements were taken by police from intelligence staff. Instead detectives made a note or typed record afterwards, which was not later shown to the witnesses.

The body of Williams was found in a padlocked sports holdall in the bath in his top-floor flat in Pimlico, central London, on 23 August 2010.

The criticism of the investigation came as Superintendent Michael Broster, of the SO15 counter-terrorism command, whose job was to liaise between homicide command and the intelligence agencies, said all electronic equipment used by Williams had been examined.

The coroner, Fiona Wilcox, asked him: "You spent a lot of time trying to find a connection between Gareth's work and his death. Did you ever find a connection?"

"No, I did not," he replied.

O'Toole asked him why no signed witness statements had been produced from those interviewed at either MI6, where Williams was on secondment, or GCHQ, where he was due to return.

All three witnesses had complained that they had not had the opportunity to verify the contents of the "quasi-formal" statements produced and on at least two occasions the contents were inaccurate, said O'Toole.

He asked Broster how he could be sure the electronic equipment "had not been interfered or tampered with" before police retrieved it.

Broster said he had been assured by both GCHQ and SIS it had not.

"So almost under the old boys' act. They told you that and you accepted it?" said O'Toole.

Broster said the assurances were from senior staff. The equipment at MI6 had been sealed with tape. Elizabeth Guthrie, a friend of Williams in London, said of the designer female clothing found in his flat that "they certainly wouldn't have been for him".

Asked about her personal opinion of his sexuality, she said he was straight.

[Peter Lemkin]

Can these people lie for Queen and Country - or what?!

[Magda Hassan]

Well, it's all quite clear. If some one ties him up to a bed it therefore means he put himself in a red hold all and did the zipper whilst inside it and locked the padlock and placed the padlock keys under his buttock. Case closed. Nothing to see here folks move along.

[Peter Lemkin]

Well, it's all quite clear. If some one ties him up to a bed it therefore means he put himself in a red hold all and did the zipper whilst inside it and locked the padlock and placed the padlock keys under his buttock. Case closed. Nothing to see here folks move along.

Right on Magda, but you forgot before he crawled into the bag in the bath and put a padlock on the outside [with third and second party DNA] from the inside, he coated himself with some chemical to hasten the decomposition process...very clever of him, really. Just another lone-nut patsy. Of COURSE, the fact he did TOP NOTCH and TOP SECRET cyberencrption/decryption work for at least three intelligence agencies in two countries has NOTHING to do with it....the answer can be found in his cross-dressing, S&M, et al. Next!

[Magda Hassan]

Ah, but of course! Yes, I forgot. But of course, still nothing at all suspicious, no nothing at all. Happens every day :pinkelephant:

[Danny Jarman]

You have to feel sorry for his family having to listen to such garbage.

[Jan Klimkowski]

And then there's this self-serving bullshit from MI6.

I don't believe a single, solitary, word of the testimony of the entity known as "F", apart from the statement that Williams' line manager has not faced any disciplinary action for totally failing to do his job.

But then it's highly likely that the line manager, in refusing to report or investigate Willliams' absence from work, was simply obeying orders.

And why would MI6 disclipline a manager for aiding in the coverup of a crime as ordered?

A senior officer, known only as F and representing MI6, told Westminster coroners court that an SIS internal review had found no link between Williams's intelligence work and his death.

She said SIS did discover a small number of searches made by Williams on its database that appeared to be unauthorised, and which might have allowed someone to "theoretically put some pressure on Gareth".

"However, it is very theoretical. And it appears there is less to this than meets the eye. There is no evidence that these actions have come to the attention of a third party, let alone a hostile or malign third party."

There was no reason to think foreign intelligence services or security organisations represented a threat to Williams, she added. MI6's security assessment was that he was "low risk" and his work had never taken him to Russia or Afghanistan, contrary to media speculation, the inquest heard. He had been on operational deployment only in the UK.

Williams's mother, Ellen, broke down and had to be led from the courtroom as F admitted the line manager responsible for not reporting Williams missing had not faced any disciplinary action.

(snip)


Williams, whose job was "developing practical applications for emerging technologies", was described as a "fully deployable, highly talented officer". Contrary to media reports, the flat he was living in was "not an SIS safe house", said F, who understood it had been rented through his employers at GCHQ.

SIS did not carry out an independent internal investigation into his death. But 12 months later, it conducted a "comprehensive internal review". "It confirmed we had no evidence of any specific threat to Gareth arising out of his activities, arising out of his work for SIS," said F. "It concluded here was no reason to think his death was in any way connected with his work."

Williams's job was to "think up and design technology" to support other operators. "He had a highly skilled, very able technical brain. Everyone in SIS found him a very pleasant individual, a good colleague, respected for his talents." But he was an intensely private individual, said F, adding that Williams did not socialise with colleagues out of work. "He liked to keep his work life very separate from the rest of his life."

Source.

[Jan Klimkowski]

The DNA of someone other than Gareth Williams was found on the exterior of the bag.

Williams could not have fitted himself into the bag whilst alive, says an expert.

Hmmmm - the chances of MI6 gettings its preferred "kinky sex suicide" verdict are surely diminishing by the hour.

"Between them, the two specialists tried 400 times to lock themselves into a similar bag 81cm x 48cm with no success"

Escapologist Harry Houdini would not have been able to fit inside the bag in which MI6 spy Gareth Williams was found dead, his inquest is told.

Source.

While one expert testified that it was possible Mr Williams locked himself in the sports bag, Peter Faulding said a third party must have been present.

"I couldn't say it is impossible, but I think even Houdini would have struggled with this one," Mr Faulding, an ex-Parachute Regiment reservist, testified. "Mr Williams was either placed in the bag unconscious, or he was dead before he was in the bag."

A reconstruction played to the London hearing shows a man of similar height and build to Mr Williams struggling to pull the zip shut. The reconstruction in the video (above) was carried out by experts under controlled conditions and should not be copied.

'Extreme heat'

If Mr Williams was alive at the time, he would have only been able to survive for 30 minutes as it was "extremely hot" and uncomfortable, Mr Faulding said. Between them, the two specialists tried 400 times to lock themselves into a similar bag 81cm x 48cm with no success.

William MacKay, an expert in "unusual occurrences," would not rule out the possibility, however, telling the inquest some people can do astonishing things.

"There are people around who can do amazing things and Mr Williams may well have been one of those persons," he said.

Bondage websites

With the hearing now in its fifth and final day, it is unlikely the public will ever know if Mr Williams was the target of foreign agents, the victim of MI6's own "dark arts," or a claustrophiliac with a love of enclosure. The 31-year-old maths genius visited websites about claustrophobia, bondage and sadomasochism.

Police said they found £20,000 of designer women's clothes in his London flat, although one of his close friends said that in her opinion Mr Williams was "straight". His former landlady testified that she found him tied to the bedpost, hollering for help three years before his death.

"My husband said 'What the bloody hell are you doing?'" Jennifer Elliot testified. Mr Williams, wearing only his boxer shorts, said he was "just messing about" to see if he could free himself.

Contaminated evidence

Some of the crime scene evidence was either contaminated or inconclusive because MI6 - including Mr Williams' superviser - said they did not notice he was missing from work for a week. Mr Williams had never missed one day's work previously, and normal procedure was to investigate within two to four hours, fuelling conspiracy theories.






Mr Williams' body was eventually found naked and decomposing, alongside the keys, inside a bag left in his bath. His family say they suspect "a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts" of entering the flat and removing evidence. The equipment used by Mr Williams at MI6 headquarters and Government Communications Headquarters Cheltenham was not retrieved for days after his body was discovered. The agency denies a cover-up.

"There was no reason to think his death was in any way connected to his work," said one MI6 witness, known only as "F". Nor, she added, was there any evidence that Mr Williams' identity as an MI6 officer had been discovered by foreign agencies.

Mr Williams, a former mathematics prodigy, was on a three-year secondment from GCHQ in Cheltenham. He designed technology for his four-person team, according to "F".

One of the detectives who worked on the case said she believed Williams had help getting into the bag as specks of unknown DNA were found on it. But in earlier testimony, the inquest heard crime scene investigators may have contaminated evidence.

[Peter Lemkin]

Bloody hell, if Oswald can fire off about eight or more shots from three directions while not holding a rifle but having a coke - than I say Mr. Williams could easily have zipped himself in the bag, locked it from outside with the keys inside and covered himself with some decay inducing chemical...no problemo!:dancingman:

[Jan Klimkowski]

So, Scotland Yard's senior investigating officer, Dectective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, did not even know that "electronic media", including "memory sticks", found amongst dead spy Gareth Williams' possessions existed, and her team were not given the opportunity to examine them.

In other words, key evidence has been withheld from the police investigating team.

I fail to see how the Coroner can now determine that a full and proper investigation of the death of Gareth Williams took place.

Gareth Williams inquest: MI6 kept spy's possessions, court hears

Detectives were not told about memory sticks or holdall that was found at his workplace, says the officer leading the inquiry

Caroline Davies

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 May 2012 12.34 BST


Memory sticks found among MI6 officer Gareth Williams's possessions in his office were examined by the Secret Intelligence Service but never handed over to detectives investigating his murder, it emerged on Tuesday.

Detectives only discovered on Monday, as his inquest drew to a close, that nine assorted memory sticks were in his locker at MI6's Vauxhall Cross offices, where he worked. The SIS also examined "electronic media" found without telling police.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, leading the murder inquiry, only knew of the memory sticks when an inventory was produced for the inquest on Monday, she told Westminster coroner Fiona Wilcox. "I would have expected to have been told," she said.

"Has your team even been given possession of these?" asked Wilcox, "No" replied Sebire. "Had I known of their existence, I would have expected them to be at least reviewed or audited by SO15, [counter-terrorism] and if information was available, then sent to my team."

She added: "What I knew was that Gareth's email accounts had been checked, but I didn't know that other media had been checked".

The naked body of the 31-year-old codes and ciphers expert, on secondment from GCHQ in Cheltenham to MI6 in London, was found in a padlocked holdall in his Pimlico flat, central London, on 23 August 2010.

The inquest has heard that because of the sensitive nature of Williams's work, counter-terrorism officers from SO15 acted as a conduit between murder detectives and the SIS.

Detective Constable Colin Hall, from SO15, said he went to the MI6 offices where Williams worked three days after his death, and was shown a shared cabinet used by Williams.

No inventory was taken of the contents of the cabinet "due to the sensitive nature of the documents," said Hall.

Nor did police seize a black North Face holdall, containing personal and work-related items, found under Williams's desk, and similar to th bag in which his body was found.

The coroner asked Hall : "Don't you think this bag should have been seized?"

Hall replied: "Probably yes, ma'am." He added: "The contents of the bag were of a sensitive nature." He said he was instructed to leave it locked "in situ".

Anthony O'Toole, lawyer for the family, asked: "If this wasn't the SIS and it was the Kray twins or someone else, you were investigating, you would have gone into far more detail, wouldn't you?"