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

[Magda Hassan]

:congrats::burnout: tupido2: :alberteinstein: :rofl: :hahaha:
Malcolm I admire your dedication and that you have found the flaw in the theory (embalming fluid on fingers makes key utilisation impossible) but don't replicate it all the way as we don't have your address to make sure you get out okay. Please send one of us the spare key to the bag (and safe house), just in case. If they find another body in a bag in another location it will bugger up the hypothesis and scare the natives. Please upload the video. Can't wait to see you in a police uniform. Gotta love a man in uniform even if it is a police woman's uniform. What am I saying, especially if it's a police woman's uniform. :beer:

[Malcolm Pryce]

Don't worry, my butler has a spare key and has been trained in emergency resuscitation techniques.

[Magda Hassan]

All is well then. I hope your man is happy with his working conditions.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Don't worry, my butler has a spare key and has been trained in emergency resuscitation techniques.

Hopefully your butler is not of mediterranean appearance, and his emergency resuscitation techniques avoid all use of satsumas....

[Jan Klimkowski]

The Torygraph article of Sept 11 is worth adding in its entirety. It appears to contain direct leaks from intelligence sources, and contains information not carried in other media to date.

A sensible working assumption is of course never to take any leak or steer from intelligence sources at face value.

The journalistic byeline credits Patrick Sawer and Gordon Thomas.

I assume this is the Gordon Thomas who wrote: Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad.

His book Gideon's Spies: Mossad's Secret Warriors became a major documentary for Channel Four that he wrote and narrated: The Spy Machine. It followed three years of research during which he was given unprecedented access to Mossad’s main personnel. The documentary was co-produced by Open Media and Israfilm[2].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Thomas_(author)

'Nuff said.

Concern grows over foreign involvement in spy's death

Concern is growing within the intelligence community that the MI6 spy found dead in his London flat may have been the victim of a professional hit by a foreign power.

Sources have told this newspaper that Britain's intelligence services – MI6, MI5 and GCHQ – are liaising closely to establish whether Gareth Williams was targeted by a foreign power.

The 31-year-old was seconded from GCHQ to work on top-secret systems to defend British banks and transport infrastructure from cyber attack and to eavesdrop on terrorist communications

As a result he may have come to the attention of foreign intelligence agencies.

Security service sources suggest that the most likely explanation for Mr Williams's death is still to be found in his private life, but they admit they are not yet certain and are considering a range of explanations.

Some officials are starting to believe the way the killing was carried out – leaving few, if any, immediate clues as to the cause of death – could point to a professionally-carried-out assassination.

Scotland Yard, which is leading the investigation into his death, said: "We're not at the stage where we can pinpoint how Mr Williams died and all avenues in this investigation remain open. We are keeping an open mind."

It is feared that by the time of his death last month Mr Williams's presence in London had become known to foreign spies, despite the fact he was living in a MI6 safe house with an alarm system linking him to nearby MI6 headquarters.

"It would have been part of their brief", said a British intelligence officer.

The 31-year-old maths and computer expert would have been regarded as a valuable asset for his knowledge of the inner-workings of GCHQ, the government's listening post in Cheltenham, and for his work on preventing cyber attacks on the banking and transport infrastructure.

It is understood Mr Williams's job at the time of his death was creating computer defences in the City of London. Williams would have had access to information which other countries would want to obtain.

The intelligence source said: "His job was to defend the banking system on which Britain's banking, commerce and all our public services depend. It was the kind of work that would have made him prime target for recruitment.

"He was also in a position to know about huge money transfers out of the Middle East which were linked to terror groups. It would be priceless data."

One theory being examined is that Mr Williams may have had an approach from a rival agency, and either rebuffed it without informing his superiors or initially agreed to co-operate then got cold feet.

If such an approach had been exposed there would have been severe political and diplomatic repercussions, making it expedient for Mr Williams to be killed.

It can be revealed that Williams had also played an important role in creating signal intelligence equipment, known as sigint, to listen to Taliban communications in Afghanistan.

He had helped in fitting out three Brittan-Norman Islander aircraft with this equipment to be used as airborne-listening stations.

Based at RAF Northolt in West London since 2007 they have flown over selected British cities searching for communications between suspected terrorists.

A key part of the equipment is the wide-band recorders that Mr Williams helped to develop. Each has the capacity to vacuum up continuous mobile phone traffic in a city the size of Bradford.

The "product" is then downloaded to GCHQ where state-of-the-art computers analyse the voices using voice-recognition software.

Mr Williams's knowledge of US intelligence agencies would have also been valuable. He spent several months at Menwith Hill, the secret listening station in Yorkshire used by the United States to intercept coded messages, and Fort Meade in Maryland, the home of the US's National Security Agency.

The death of Mr Williams has puzzled detectives since August 23, when his body was found inside a sports holdall, padlocked from the outside and left in the bath of the safe house where he was staying while on secondment to the service from his employer GCHQ, the government listening post.

There was no evidence of a struggle or a break in at the Pimlico flat and nothing had been stolen.

Although nothing has been discounted the evidence gathered so far suggests it is increasingly unlikely that Mr Williams was the victim of a random attack or a sex game that went wrong.

Pathologists have carried out two post-mortems, but both failed to establish how Mr Williams died, though the examination was complicated by the fact that the body was said to be in an "advanced state of decay".

What is known, however, is that Williams, a cycling enthusiast, had not been shot or stabbed and did not appear to have been strangled.

Scotland Yard say detectives are now awaiting the result of toxicology tests.

These would establish whether Mr Williams was poisoned using a deadly toxin such as strychnine, cyanide or thallium, administered in such a way as to leave no mark visible to the naked eye.

Sources state that Home Office pathologists are also looking for evidence that Mr Williams was smothered to death, a method that can leave no trace and is extremely hard to detect.

Concern about the possible involvement of a foreign agency has increased further following a public appeal issued last week [Monday, September 7] by Scotland Yard detectives, who are taking the lead in the investigation.

Detectives said they were trying to trace a couple Mediterranean appearance, aged between 20 and 30, who visited the house in Pimlico late one night in the weeks before Mr Williams died.

The Yard revealed the couple were the only people who had been seen around the time of his death at the property in Alderney Street not to be accounted for.

Neighbours told police the pair were let in through the communal front door late one evening, in either June or July. It is believed they were visiting Mr Williams and detectives want them to come forward so they can be eliminated from their inquiries.

Police have visited Mr Williams's landlady in Cheltenham, where he lived for 10 years before being seconded to MI6. They asked Jennifer Elliot about his working hours and lifestyle and about any friends or acquaintances who may have visited his lodgings.

Scotland Yard repeated its appeal for the 'Mediterranean couple' on Friday. A spokesman said: "We are still very keen to speak to the pair. They may have useful information."

Mr Williams's family are reportedly unhappy at the lack of progress in the investigation and are said to have demanded the return of his body. Reports say they would like to commission an independent own post-mortem examination into his death.

A source close to the family was reported as saying: "It is becoming very frustrating to get to the bottom of whatever has happened.

"There are just so many things we still don't know. We have made it clear to the police that we want the body back as soon as possible."

However, Dr Paul Knapman, the coroner in charge of the inquest, is reluctant to release the body until pathologists have completed their tests and established the cause of death.

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

Plenty enough there to get Williams terminated with extreme prejudice.

The official story claims that Williams didn't turn up for work at MI6 for a fortnight, but wasn't on leave. And MI6 didn't check on him until they visited the safe house in which he was living and discovered his decomposing corpse in the padlocked sports bag in the bath.

Hmmmm - that's about as plausible as Andy Coulson claiming he knew nothing about his reporters hacking into the phones of investigative targets. :bandit:

[Peter Lemkin]

No one seems to be asking the right questions [on purpose]; such as why a spy or highly-classified crytographer wouldn't be 'checked-upon' the very day he didn't show for work..not two weeks after. All the peripheral garbage about the case seems invented and just a barrel full of red herring to divert and confuse. Now I read that the bag was a North Face bag...so WHAT!>?!...[and it was red!]. I think the officials are just hoping the story will die and all will forget it....so they never have to discuss what they know and don't want to tell. Ever hear of a resolution of the 135 billion in 'phony' bearer bonds caper....NO...it too [as most others with intel or deep political connections] has been allowed to 'vanish'..... The Plebs are not to question their would-be-masters. :eviltongue: as to what is really going on. They'll keep the 'Kelly matter' secret, as with 7/7 unless forced to, as well...and with SO many others.....:burnout:

[David Guyatt]

Ah, the dear ol' Daily Bellylaugh. What would one (i.e., the mil-intell community) do without it?

They'd have to launch their own rag.

Whoops....

In any case, that appears to have put paid to my developing theory that a foreign intell outfit did it. And since death via private life interactions was never a runner anyway, it seems we may now need to look deeper.

[Jan Klimkowski]

From spook-sourced Daily Telegraph article above:

The 31-year-old maths and computer expert would have been regarded as a valuable asset for his knowledge of the inner-workings of GCHQ, the government's listening post in Cheltenham, and for his work on preventing cyber attacks on the banking and transport infrastructure.

It is understood Mr Williams's job at the time of his death was creating computer defences in the City of London. Williams would have had access to information which other countries would want to obtain.

The intelligence source said: "His job was to defend the banking system on which Britain's banking, commerce and all our public services depend. It was the kind of work that would have made him prime target for recruitment.

"He was also in a position to know about huge money transfers out of the Middle East which were linked to terror groups. It would be priceless data."

One theory being examined is that Mr Williams may have had an approach from a rival agency, and either rebuffed it without informing his superiors or initially agreed to co-operate then got cold feet.

If such an approach had been exposed there would have been severe political and diplomatic repercussions, making it expedient for Mr Williams to be killed.

It can be revealed that Williams had also played an important role in creating signal intelligence equipment, known as sigint, to listen to Taliban communications in Afghanistan.

He had helped in fitting out three Brittan-Norman Islander aircraft with this equipment to be used as airborne-listening stations.

Speculatively, I consider the line being pushed above that a foreign intelligence agency had attempted to recruit Williams, and killed him after being rebuffed or because of cold feet, as unlikely.

My personal speculative judgement is that it is more likely that Williams discovered something in his investigation of money flows in and out of the City of London, including not just money laundering of arms and drugs money, but also potentially black operations such as death or false flag squads, which he was having difficulty accepting at a moral and ethical level.

I am guilty here of having a romantic view of human nature, in which even hardened intelligence operatives still ultimately have a functioning moral compass.

However, it is precisely that functioning moral compass which led to Frank Olson being given the acid trip to death. Olson was about to blow the whistle on terminal human mind control experiments, by British and American intelligence, and was therefore murdered - with the truth of his death hidden beneath several onion skins since peeled away, in large part due to the efforts of his son.

So, in my judgement, it is possible that Williams was murdered because he was about to blow the whistle on some particularly nefarious and ugly deep black money trail.

I am still struggling to understand why the body was left in the locked bag in the bath for a fortnight.

Unless it was an attempt to create a contaminated crime scene which could be used, in some fashion, to discredit Williams through allegations about his private life. However, as we've explored above, there is nothing inherently erotically arousing about locking oneself in a sports bag in a bath smothered in some unknown liquid.

[Peter Lemkin]

Latest theory about the death of Gareth Williams is preposterous, say security experts
By Jack Bremer

National security experts reached by The First Post last night have reacted with a mixture of astonishment, ridicule and suspicion to the idea that Gareth Williams, the MI6 agent found dead in a London flat last month, padlocked himself in a zip-up holdall in search of a sexual thrill and then suffocated because he couldn't get out again.

"With all due respect to Williams and his family, I haven't stopped laughing since I read the paper at breakfast," one former agent said. "It's more than unlikely - it's preposterous."

The hypothesis was reported by the Sunday Times, quoting anonymous "security sources".

The paper claimed police had established that Williams, a single man, had a record of engaging in autoerotic practices, and that the greatest likelihood was that he had died as result of an experiment going wrong.

According to the Sunday Times' source, police recently invited an escapologist to show them whether it was possible to lock oneself in a holdall and get out again. The escapologist duly climbed into the bag, padlocked it from the inside and then unzipped it using a sharp-tipped pen.

Convinced by this - and without addressing whether a 31-year-old codebreaker would necessarily have the skills honed over the years by a seasoned escapologist - the police were apparently persuaded that Williams must have got into the bag and then suffocated in the August heat before he could release himself.

"The emerging background is something almost certainly autoerotic," a "senior official" told the paper.

The "emerging background", to coin a phrase, for those observing this case unfold, is that the police are at a total loss as to how Williams died.

This is either because forensics are revealing nothing - it is possible he was murdered by an enemy using undetectable poison, for instance - or because someone somewhere has succeeded in throwing the police off the scent.

According to The First Post's security sources, there are good reasons why government agencies might want this investigation to "go away". These include the possibility that what Williams was working on - and what might have led to his murder - is simply too sensitive to be allowed to go public. It is also possible that his employers slipped up in some respect.

One security consultant who spoke anonymously to The First Post said he had been surprised from the start at the considerable delay - at least a week, longer according to some reports - before anyone was alerted to Williams's absence.

This did not tally with our source's experience of working for British intelligence: he said the slightest hiccup in established routine would bring instant inquiries.

Another source was puzzled by the differing messages being leaked - mainly to the Sunday Times - by those claiming to be close to the investigation. "One minute we're looking for a suspicious couple of Mediterranean appearance, the next we're being told he could have been poisoned by polonium-210 like Alexander Litvinenko - now we're expected to believe that he locked himself in a suitcase."

The facts are that Gareth Williams was a GCHQ codebreaker on secondment to MI6, where his work made him privy to highly classified anti-terrorism material. On August 23, at least a week after he had last been seen, his body was found in a North Face holdall in the bath at his top-floor apartment in Pimlico, a short walk from MI6 headquarters.

Yes, there are instances of auto-asphyxiation fetishists accidentally killing themselves. But invariably these cases involve hanging, not climbing into airtight suitcases.

As Crispin Black wrote for The First Post a week ago, the discovery of Gareth Williams's corpse bore all the hallmarks of a murder by someone who had killed before.

The perpetrator had prepared the victim for transport, put the bag in the bath where any final traces of the crime could most easily be washed away, and was then presumably interrupted before being able to remove the body for disposal.

[Malcolm Pryce]

When the Home Office escapologist performed his Houdini trick was the bath filled with the mystery fluid which was a feature of earlier reports?