26-09-2010, 06:14 PM
(This post was last modified: 26-09-2010, 06:50 PM by Peter Lemkin.)
FBI joins investigation of MI6 agent death
The FBI is the latest government organisation to join the manhunt for the couple linked to an MI6 agent that was found dead in a London safe house.
Using face recognition technology, the US Federal Investigations Bureau will determine if MI6 spy Gareth Williams at any point traveled to the US with a couple that fits the description of the two individuals being sought after by Scotland Yard. The couple, described as Mediterranean in appearance, is believed to have visited Williams’ flat in June or July.
Scotland Yard has, so far, not been able to locate the couple, but detectives maintain that they are vital to the ongoing inquiry. Williams’, a maths prodigy, made frequent trips to the US to the US National Security Agency in Maryland working on secondment. Williams arrived back in London from Washington on Tuesday 10 August and his body was found in his flat on 23 August. On the 15th of August, Williams was caught on camera shopping at Harrods. The MI6 agent’s funeral was held Friday and attended by MI6 head Sir John Sawers.
FBI agents have searched the flat that Williams used while working at the NSA in the States and have interviewed several of his colleagues. They have also taken steps to investigate whether or not the couple could be linked to Williams small group of friends in the States. According to US intelligence sources, so far nothing compromising has been turned up during the investigation.
Williams was a key player in a joint team operation put together by MI6, NSA and GCHQ. He was working on defence schemes for cyber attacks for both Britain and the US at the time of his death. According to one source, Williams clearance was so high, he had access to more than 30 different categories of NSA information.
-------------------------------------------
CIA probes British spy murder as it emerges he was sent on frequent missions to Pentagon's high-security listening post
By Charlotte Gill, Emily Andrews and Liz Hull
Last updated at 9:01 AM on 27th August 2010
Gareth Williams: Visited the National Security Agency in America at least four times a year
The CIA was called in to help investigate the murder of an MI6 spy last night as it emerged he was sent on frequent secret missions to the United States.
American intelligence officers are poring over every detail of Gareth Williams's work and personal life to see if the circumstances of his death endangered U.S. national security.
The Daily Mail can reveal that the 31-year-old codebreaker flew to the National Security Agency, the Pentagon's listening post and the largest intelligence agency in the world, up to four times a year. He returned from his last trip to America only a few weeks before he was found dead.
Questions also remain over why his body lay undiscovered for up to a fortnight at his£400,000 flat in a Victorian townhouse in Pimlico, central London, half a mile from MI6 headquarters.
Mr Williams worked at the Government's listening post, GCHQ in Cheltenham, but had been on secondment to MI6 for the past year and was due to return to GCHQ next Friday.
The body of the keen cyclist was found in a sports holdall in the bath on Monday afternoon.
But yesterday his former landlady in Cheltenham insisted he had not been off work, intensifying the mystery surrounding his death.
Security sources could not explain why some one holding such a sensitive post was able to go 'missing' for such a long time before police were called.
Officers were last night examining the hard drive of a laptop computer found
in the flat.
Landlady Jenny Elliott said: 'He definitely wasn't on annual leave as the security services woman who came to see me after they found his body told me that he wasn't on holiday.
'Why did no one notice? It's disgraceful the police weren't alerted earlier that he was missing. His murder is devastating and I just hope the person who did it is caught.
Mrs Elliott, 71, who rented Mr Williams a self-contained flat attached to her home in Cheltenham, said he would often travel to America for weeks at a time three or four times a year either with a male colleague or on his own.
National Security Agenc
National Security Agency: The largest intelligence agency in the world, bases at Fort Meade, Maryland. It is understood that Gareth Williams visited the facility up to four times a year
His uncle, who lives in Anglesey, North Wales, where Mr Williams grew up, said: 'He'd been making the trips for a couple of years.
'I only found this out very recently and I do not know where in America he was staying or who he was working for out there, but I do know it was in relation to his job.
'His last trip was this summer. He returned from the States just a couple of weeks or so before he died.'
A U.S. intelligence source said there was 'no panic' yet within the National
Security Agency and people who knew Mr Williams were still to be questioned.
The source said: 'The strong implication is that his death is not connected
to his intelligence work, though this could change at any time. They are understandably concerned about what has happened and are keeping a close eye on developments.'
Mr Williams's devastated parents Ian and Ellen have faced speculation over their son's private life.
It has been reported that Mr Williams, who lived alone and did not have a partner,
was a gay cross dresser and may have been killed by a gay lover.
PCSO on guard
On guard: A police support officer guards Mr Williams former home. The CIA have now joined the investigation into his death, although there is said to be 'no panic' that his death may be related to his intelligence work
Police sources believe another theory is the spy's killer may have planted a trail of clues to make it seem as though he was murdered by a gay lover.
They said gay magazines and the phone numbers of gay escort men were found in the apartment near the agent's body.
Police have also asked a pathologist to check whether Mr Williams's neck was broken, which would suggest a professional hit, the sources said.
Those who know him say there is nothing to suggest that he may have been homosexual.
Mrs Elliott, who rented her flat to him for ten years during his time at GCHQ, never saw him bring anyone – male or female – back to his home.
Detectives are still trying to ascertainhow Mr Williams died. A postmortem
examination proved inconclusive and now they must wait for toxicology results to find out whether drugs, alcohol, poisoning or suffocation were the cause of death.
Sources say he was not stabbed, shot, strangled or beaten. Scotland Yard is describing the death as 'suspicious and unexplained'.
A former MI6 officer said that intelligence chiefs are furious that details of Mr Williams's work as a spy had been leaked.
Pentagon Graphic
Harry Ferguson said senior officials at the Secret Intelligence Service wanted to suppress any information about his work and to simply refer to him as a 'civil servant' when news of the murder was made public.
'They hoped details of his role could all be kept covered up. It is a standard
process. Blurting it out has caused a lot of unnecessary embarrassment, risk and upheaval to the SIS.
'If it had been managed properly it could have been kept quiet. He could simply have been described as a government worker or civil servant.
'They are especially frustrated that it has emerged that not only was he was working in GCHQ, but also on secondment to MI6.'
Mr Ferguson said secret service bosses feared that the 'nightmare scenario' had come true when the body was discovered.
'One of the concerns about having such a high profile building as the SIS does is that, while staff can be protected when inside the building, there a significant risk that they could be followed home,' he said.
'It is the sort of thing that a small group of Islamists or other terror network would clearly be capable of doing.'
He said the apparent 'ritualistic' scene at Mr Williams' flat, with his mobile phone and SIM cards carefully laid out, also suggested it could have been carried out by a foreign agency to send a message.
The reclusive maths genius and rumours of cross-dressing and blackmail
FROM a tender age, it was clear to his teachers at Morswyn primary school on Anglesey that there was something special about Gareth Williams.
A talented pupil, he was fast-tracked through education, earning his maths GCSE aged nine while most of his contemporaries were still grappling with basic arithmetic.
By 13 he had secured his A-levels and had a degree in maths by 17.
He was known as ‘the maths genius’ by fellow pupils and possessed the ‘fastest brain’ his teachers had encountered. But his academic excellence came at a price.
Gareth Williams schoolboy
Bright boy: Gareth Williams, centre, with classmates in 1987. He staggered teachers with his ability in maths, passing a GCSE aged only nine, and obtaining his A-Level at 13
Forced to study with children several years older than himself, he found it hard to make friends and was last night described by former school mates as ‘socially naive’ and ‘introverted’.
Detectives were last night investigating whether this shy, private side to his nature made him vulnerable to blackmail amid lurid claims that he was a secret cross-dresser.
Geraint Williams, his maths teacher at secondary school, recalled how young Gareth was so clever that he sat his intermediate maths GCSE, gaining a grade B, while still at primary school, before being moved up to Bodedern Secondary School, Holyhead, a year ahead of his peers.
Within months of his arrival he took his advanced GCSE, scoring an A grade, and received top marks in A-level maths and computer studies two years later, when he was 13.
His teachers were initially at a loss at how best to educate him.Their solution was to move him up two years and enrol the youngster, then aged15, on a three-year maths degree course at his local university at Bangor, which heattained in just two years with first class honours.
Teacher Mr Williams said: ‘I’d heard about this amazing pupil who had done his GCSE at primary school and got a B at intermediate level.
‘He took the higher level GCSE in a couple of months and got an A. It was a problem for us – what could we do with him? We got him to follow A-levels and he did A-level maths and computer science in the third-form. He achieved As in them.
‘That was a big problem because he was still only 13, so we contacted Bangor University and he followed the first year of maths degree course.’
The teacher added: ‘He was the best logician and the pupil with the fastest brain I have ever met. You only had to say things once, that’s why he was so successful. He could understand things immediately. He was also extremely good with computer science.
‘Gareth was also a very nice lad, quiet and unassuming. It’s very sad.’
After leaving Bangor University at 17, Mr Williams went on to study for a PhD at Manchester University before enrolling in postgraduate certificate at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, in 2000.
He dropped out a year later, but last night friends speculated that he left afterbeing taken on by the Secret Services, which traditionally recruit from Oxbridge.
They said it was an open secret that Mr Williams worked at GCHQ, but added that any notion that the quiet, unassuming boy lead a James Bond spy lifestyle was laughable.
One close friend, who attended primary school with Mr Williams, said: ‘Gareth was a super, super brain. Beyond intelligent, a very, very clever guy.
‘He was hand-picked while at Cambridge by the services, they want the cream of the crop and he certainly was that.
‘It was common knowledge that he worked at GCHQ, but any notion that he led a James Bond style lifestyle is rubbish.
‘Those kind of people have to be able to blend in, but Gareth wasn’t like that, he was very different.
‘He was introverted and found it difficult to make friends, but he was a lovely, lovely bloke. It is such a tragic waste of such a talented life.’
Williams Family Home
The family home: Mr Williams was raised in Holyhead by parents Ian and Ellen. Last night they were said to be 'devastated' at the death of their son
The dead man’s parents, Ian, an engineer at Wylfa power station, and mother Ellen, who worked in education, were on holiday in America celebrating their joint 50th birthdays when news of their son’s death broke.Last night they were said to be ‘devastated’.
Another former school friend, Dylan Parry, 34, said he was ‘dumfounded’ by the murder.
‘Gareth was the last person I would have believed would be involved in the murkier elements of life,’ said Mr Parry, of Holyhead. ‘He really was about as far from a James Bond figure as it’s possible to imagine.
‘Gareth was introverted and socially awkward. He wasn’t dashing or cavalier or a charmer, although he was extremely nice in a quiet way.
‘There has been a lot of speculation about his sexuality, but he was so introverted as to be asexual.‘
He wasn’t able to form relationships because he was so obsessed with his maths studies.
‘We nicknamed him the maths genius because he was so clever. He was so naive, he was someone people could easily take advantage of.
‘I wouldn’t have thought he was a very good judge of character and it’s possible he got to know someone who wasn’t very safe. He was so innocent.’
The FBI is the latest government organisation to join the manhunt for the couple linked to an MI6 agent that was found dead in a London safe house.
Using face recognition technology, the US Federal Investigations Bureau will determine if MI6 spy Gareth Williams at any point traveled to the US with a couple that fits the description of the two individuals being sought after by Scotland Yard. The couple, described as Mediterranean in appearance, is believed to have visited Williams’ flat in June or July.
Scotland Yard has, so far, not been able to locate the couple, but detectives maintain that they are vital to the ongoing inquiry. Williams’, a maths prodigy, made frequent trips to the US to the US National Security Agency in Maryland working on secondment. Williams arrived back in London from Washington on Tuesday 10 August and his body was found in his flat on 23 August. On the 15th of August, Williams was caught on camera shopping at Harrods. The MI6 agent’s funeral was held Friday and attended by MI6 head Sir John Sawers.
FBI agents have searched the flat that Williams used while working at the NSA in the States and have interviewed several of his colleagues. They have also taken steps to investigate whether or not the couple could be linked to Williams small group of friends in the States. According to US intelligence sources, so far nothing compromising has been turned up during the investigation.
Williams was a key player in a joint team operation put together by MI6, NSA and GCHQ. He was working on defence schemes for cyber attacks for both Britain and the US at the time of his death. According to one source, Williams clearance was so high, he had access to more than 30 different categories of NSA information.
-------------------------------------------
CIA probes British spy murder as it emerges he was sent on frequent missions to Pentagon's high-security listening post
By Charlotte Gill, Emily Andrews and Liz Hull
Last updated at 9:01 AM on 27th August 2010
Gareth Williams: Visited the National Security Agency in America at least four times a year
The CIA was called in to help investigate the murder of an MI6 spy last night as it emerged he was sent on frequent secret missions to the United States.
American intelligence officers are poring over every detail of Gareth Williams's work and personal life to see if the circumstances of his death endangered U.S. national security.
The Daily Mail can reveal that the 31-year-old codebreaker flew to the National Security Agency, the Pentagon's listening post and the largest intelligence agency in the world, up to four times a year. He returned from his last trip to America only a few weeks before he was found dead.
Questions also remain over why his body lay undiscovered for up to a fortnight at his£400,000 flat in a Victorian townhouse in Pimlico, central London, half a mile from MI6 headquarters.
Mr Williams worked at the Government's listening post, GCHQ in Cheltenham, but had been on secondment to MI6 for the past year and was due to return to GCHQ next Friday.
The body of the keen cyclist was found in a sports holdall in the bath on Monday afternoon.
But yesterday his former landlady in Cheltenham insisted he had not been off work, intensifying the mystery surrounding his death.
Security sources could not explain why some one holding such a sensitive post was able to go 'missing' for such a long time before police were called.
Officers were last night examining the hard drive of a laptop computer found
in the flat.
Landlady Jenny Elliott said: 'He definitely wasn't on annual leave as the security services woman who came to see me after they found his body told me that he wasn't on holiday.
'Why did no one notice? It's disgraceful the police weren't alerted earlier that he was missing. His murder is devastating and I just hope the person who did it is caught.
Mrs Elliott, 71, who rented Mr Williams a self-contained flat attached to her home in Cheltenham, said he would often travel to America for weeks at a time three or four times a year either with a male colleague or on his own.
National Security Agenc
National Security Agency: The largest intelligence agency in the world, bases at Fort Meade, Maryland. It is understood that Gareth Williams visited the facility up to four times a year
His uncle, who lives in Anglesey, North Wales, where Mr Williams grew up, said: 'He'd been making the trips for a couple of years.
'I only found this out very recently and I do not know where in America he was staying or who he was working for out there, but I do know it was in relation to his job.
'His last trip was this summer. He returned from the States just a couple of weeks or so before he died.'
A U.S. intelligence source said there was 'no panic' yet within the National
Security Agency and people who knew Mr Williams were still to be questioned.
The source said: 'The strong implication is that his death is not connected
to his intelligence work, though this could change at any time. They are understandably concerned about what has happened and are keeping a close eye on developments.'
Mr Williams's devastated parents Ian and Ellen have faced speculation over their son's private life.
It has been reported that Mr Williams, who lived alone and did not have a partner,
was a gay cross dresser and may have been killed by a gay lover.
PCSO on guard
On guard: A police support officer guards Mr Williams former home. The CIA have now joined the investigation into his death, although there is said to be 'no panic' that his death may be related to his intelligence work
Police sources believe another theory is the spy's killer may have planted a trail of clues to make it seem as though he was murdered by a gay lover.
They said gay magazines and the phone numbers of gay escort men were found in the apartment near the agent's body.
Police have also asked a pathologist to check whether Mr Williams's neck was broken, which would suggest a professional hit, the sources said.
Those who know him say there is nothing to suggest that he may have been homosexual.
Mrs Elliott, who rented her flat to him for ten years during his time at GCHQ, never saw him bring anyone – male or female – back to his home.
Detectives are still trying to ascertainhow Mr Williams died. A postmortem
examination proved inconclusive and now they must wait for toxicology results to find out whether drugs, alcohol, poisoning or suffocation were the cause of death.
Sources say he was not stabbed, shot, strangled or beaten. Scotland Yard is describing the death as 'suspicious and unexplained'.
A former MI6 officer said that intelligence chiefs are furious that details of Mr Williams's work as a spy had been leaked.
Pentagon Graphic
Harry Ferguson said senior officials at the Secret Intelligence Service wanted to suppress any information about his work and to simply refer to him as a 'civil servant' when news of the murder was made public.
'They hoped details of his role could all be kept covered up. It is a standard
process. Blurting it out has caused a lot of unnecessary embarrassment, risk and upheaval to the SIS.
'If it had been managed properly it could have been kept quiet. He could simply have been described as a government worker or civil servant.
'They are especially frustrated that it has emerged that not only was he was working in GCHQ, but also on secondment to MI6.'
Mr Ferguson said secret service bosses feared that the 'nightmare scenario' had come true when the body was discovered.
'One of the concerns about having such a high profile building as the SIS does is that, while staff can be protected when inside the building, there a significant risk that they could be followed home,' he said.
'It is the sort of thing that a small group of Islamists or other terror network would clearly be capable of doing.'
He said the apparent 'ritualistic' scene at Mr Williams' flat, with his mobile phone and SIM cards carefully laid out, also suggested it could have been carried out by a foreign agency to send a message.
The reclusive maths genius and rumours of cross-dressing and blackmail
FROM a tender age, it was clear to his teachers at Morswyn primary school on Anglesey that there was something special about Gareth Williams.
A talented pupil, he was fast-tracked through education, earning his maths GCSE aged nine while most of his contemporaries were still grappling with basic arithmetic.
By 13 he had secured his A-levels and had a degree in maths by 17.
He was known as ‘the maths genius’ by fellow pupils and possessed the ‘fastest brain’ his teachers had encountered. But his academic excellence came at a price.
Gareth Williams schoolboy
Bright boy: Gareth Williams, centre, with classmates in 1987. He staggered teachers with his ability in maths, passing a GCSE aged only nine, and obtaining his A-Level at 13
Forced to study with children several years older than himself, he found it hard to make friends and was last night described by former school mates as ‘socially naive’ and ‘introverted’.
Detectives were last night investigating whether this shy, private side to his nature made him vulnerable to blackmail amid lurid claims that he was a secret cross-dresser.
Geraint Williams, his maths teacher at secondary school, recalled how young Gareth was so clever that he sat his intermediate maths GCSE, gaining a grade B, while still at primary school, before being moved up to Bodedern Secondary School, Holyhead, a year ahead of his peers.
Within months of his arrival he took his advanced GCSE, scoring an A grade, and received top marks in A-level maths and computer studies two years later, when he was 13.
His teachers were initially at a loss at how best to educate him.Their solution was to move him up two years and enrol the youngster, then aged15, on a three-year maths degree course at his local university at Bangor, which heattained in just two years with first class honours.
Teacher Mr Williams said: ‘I’d heard about this amazing pupil who had done his GCSE at primary school and got a B at intermediate level.
‘He took the higher level GCSE in a couple of months and got an A. It was a problem for us – what could we do with him? We got him to follow A-levels and he did A-level maths and computer science in the third-form. He achieved As in them.
‘That was a big problem because he was still only 13, so we contacted Bangor University and he followed the first year of maths degree course.’
The teacher added: ‘He was the best logician and the pupil with the fastest brain I have ever met. You only had to say things once, that’s why he was so successful. He could understand things immediately. He was also extremely good with computer science.
‘Gareth was also a very nice lad, quiet and unassuming. It’s very sad.’
After leaving Bangor University at 17, Mr Williams went on to study for a PhD at Manchester University before enrolling in postgraduate certificate at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, in 2000.
He dropped out a year later, but last night friends speculated that he left afterbeing taken on by the Secret Services, which traditionally recruit from Oxbridge.
They said it was an open secret that Mr Williams worked at GCHQ, but added that any notion that the quiet, unassuming boy lead a James Bond spy lifestyle was laughable.
One close friend, who attended primary school with Mr Williams, said: ‘Gareth was a super, super brain. Beyond intelligent, a very, very clever guy.
‘He was hand-picked while at Cambridge by the services, they want the cream of the crop and he certainly was that.
‘It was common knowledge that he worked at GCHQ, but any notion that he led a James Bond style lifestyle is rubbish.
‘Those kind of people have to be able to blend in, but Gareth wasn’t like that, he was very different.
‘He was introverted and found it difficult to make friends, but he was a lovely, lovely bloke. It is such a tragic waste of such a talented life.’
Williams Family Home
The family home: Mr Williams was raised in Holyhead by parents Ian and Ellen. Last night they were said to be 'devastated' at the death of their son
The dead man’s parents, Ian, an engineer at Wylfa power station, and mother Ellen, who worked in education, were on holiday in America celebrating their joint 50th birthdays when news of their son’s death broke.Last night they were said to be ‘devastated’.
Another former school friend, Dylan Parry, 34, said he was ‘dumfounded’ by the murder.
‘Gareth was the last person I would have believed would be involved in the murkier elements of life,’ said Mr Parry, of Holyhead. ‘He really was about as far from a James Bond figure as it’s possible to imagine.
‘Gareth was introverted and socially awkward. He wasn’t dashing or cavalier or a charmer, although he was extremely nice in a quiet way.
‘There has been a lot of speculation about his sexuality, but he was so introverted as to be asexual.‘
He wasn’t able to form relationships because he was so obsessed with his maths studies.
‘We nicknamed him the maths genius because he was so clever. He was so naive, he was someone people could easily take advantage of.
‘I wouldn’t have thought he was a very good judge of character and it’s possible he got to know someone who wasn’t very safe. He was so innocent.’
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass