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

[Magda Hassan]

For some reason some are still pushing for the outcome to say he died alone.... :flypig:

'Credible evidence' MI6 spy died alone, says pathologist

By Philip KempRadio 4's The Report

MI6 officer Gareth Williams was found dead at his London home in 2010.

Continue reading the main story

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A leading pathologist says the possibility MI6 officer Gareth Williams died alone should be re-examined.
Dr Richard Shepherd told the BBC there is "credible evidence" that bags identical to the one Mr Williams was found in can be locked by someone inside the bag.
Expert witnesses at the inquest into Mr Williams' death failed to do so despite making hundreds of attempts.
However, evidence has since been published claiming it can be done.
Gareth Williams was found dead locked in a bag in his home in 2010
Dr Shepherd, who conducted one of the post-mortem examinations of Gareth Williams, has previously worked on other high profile cases including the deaths of Princess Diana and the government scientist David Kelly.
He says the police should now re-examine the possibility Mr Williams died alone as part of their on-going investigations.
Speaking to Radio 4's The Report, he said: "Now that we have credible evidence that it is possible to lock the bag from the inside, whilst it doesn't rule out homicide, clearly the chances of this as a solitary sexual act have to be considered in any future investigation by the Metropolitan Police."
The Metropolitan Police said the circumstances of Gareth Williams' death continue to be the subject of a thorough investigation.
Mr Williams was found dead, locked in a bag located in a bath tub in his London flat in 2010. One key question before the inquest into his death was whether he had locked himself in the bag.
At the pre-inquest hearing, coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox said the question was central to her inquiries.
Confined space expert Peter Faulding told the inquest that while he could not rule out that it was possible, "even Houdini would have struggled with this one".
A second expert, William MacKay said he and an assistant had also failed despite making more than a hundred attempts.
Their evidence helped the coroner Dr Wilcox earlier this month come to the conclusion that Mr Williams was probably unlawfully killed.
New evidence emergesHowever, journalist Claire Hayhurst claims she managed to lock herself in a similar bag after just five attempts under the guidance of a former soldier, Jim Featherstonhaugh, who claims to have figured out a technique.
Continue reading the main story
"The trickiest part was getting the lock together which is the biggest riddle of it. I spent maybe two-and-a-half hours getting in and out, filming it, and most of that time was spent with me outside the bag desperately drinking water and trying to recover," she told the BBC.
"I'm not super-fit but I've been told I've got a similar build to Gareth.
"I'd agree that someone of exactly the same proportions would be a fairer comparison but I do think me doing it shows that it's certainly possible."
Claire Hayhurst stresses she worked under the supervision of safety experts and says any attempt to recreate the experiment would be highly dangerous.
Confined space expert Peter Faulding told The Report he stood by the evidence he gave to the inquest.
"None of my conclusions were wrong - a young girl zipping a bag doesn't discredit this inquiry whatsoever," he said.
"We were fully aware of other methods of being able to lock the bag but she or nobody could achieve it without leaving her DNA on the bath - and that's the key to this," he added.
It has also been pointed out that Claire Hayhurst did not lock the bag in exactly the same way as the holdall found in Gareth Williams' flat.
At the inquest into his death, Dr Fiona Wilcox said she was satisfied that a third party had been involved in moving the bag containing the MI6 officer into the bathroom of his flat.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18177069

[Peter Lemkin]

The idea that he put himself in the bag is a Pure and knowing bullshit lie to cover up Deep Political Dirt. :darthvader:

[Peter Lemkin]

The Secret State
Death of Gareth Williams MI6/GCHQ: extract from NFB 10
Published on Tuesday, 26 June 2012 22:31
[URL="http://borderland.co.uk/index.php/travel-mainmenu-32/22-the-secret-state/the-secret-state/102-death-of-gareth-williams-mi6gchq-coming-soon-click-for-details.html"][Part of longer article from strange anti-conspiracy/anti-fascist UK magazine..]
[/URL]
We have just published (in NFB 10) a mammoth article on the current state of play regarding this man's death & the resulting investigation/disinformation war between the Met Police & MI6. Part 1 of a 2 part series. We welcome this opportunity to cover MI6 in rather more detail than hitherto. No conspiracy theorising or wild assertions--merely rigorous dispassionate analysis up to our usual standards. The piece takes up the bulk of issue 10--some of it (the start/timeline) is below as well as in the hard copy magazine, but only the magazine has the entire article. To ensure you get the whole thing, subscribe today (visit www.borderlandmagazine.co.uk to buy on-line). As it develops, the article will be like our investigation into the 1999 Soho nail-bombing scandal, where an initial exploratory article in issue 3 was followed up subsequently. Rather than continually revise the article once up (the bane of internet pseudo-facticity), we will cover further revelations/events in the hard copy magazine, though the chronology below will be updated on-line, as and when. Rest assured, NFB is, in our inimitable way, 'on the case'. At www.borderlandmagazine.co.uk not only can you buy issue 10, there are two film clips of editor Dr Larry O'Hara visiting various sites associated with the case: 36 Alderney Street & surrounds, MI6 HQ, Bar-Code, Patisserie Valerie, Holland Park Tube Station. Check them out.

Bear with us--we are also updating the rest of this upgraded site and working on the next issue (11) already. Speaking of articles, if you fancy writing one that conforms to our interests and standards--contact us. Go to the contact/media page and look at 'Notes For Contributors'.

GARETH WILLIAMS: MURDERED TWICE? (Part 1 of 2)

Larry O'Hara

On 23/8/10 the naked body of Gareth Williams, a 31 year-old Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) worker, seconded from Cheltenham to MI6 was found, inside a holdall placed in a bath at his home. The door of flat 4 36 Alderney Street Pimlico was locked from the outside, and despite three post-mortems and police appeals for help, exactly how and why he died remains unclear. On current evidence, and in the view of the coroner, it was almost certainly murder--and Williams' reputation has certainly taken a hit, with an abundance of lurid and fantastical stories about his life and death still swirling in the media ether. Hence the title: murdered in reality and memory. NFB has taken a keen interest from the start.

At time of writing the inquest has just concluded, coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox declaring that "on the balance of probability Gareth was unlawfully killed". The inquest itself was startling, not least because new facts came out that even DCI Sebire, in charge of the investigation, had not known earlier. Six aspects are covered in this first article, which chronologically focusses on what happened before the inquest.

(1) Who was Gareth Williams? How important was his work for GCHQ & MI6?

(2) What are the broadly accepted facts of both denouement and resultant investigation? A time-line is useful: as is discernment. In that regard some contested but relevant snippets are included.

(3) Scanning the extensive news coverage, in light of NFB's basic paradigm of the media as a battleground on which vicious inter-agency turf wars take place. The principal conflict here is the Metropolitan Police (Homicide Squad) versus MI6. I sketch out the phases (to date) in this 'disinformation war'.

(4) Supplementing the previous point, an exploration, via output analysis, of the journalistic spook outriders reporting events, providing dates & references. With the exception of Times/Sunday Times/News of the World journalists whose oeuvre is only available in hard copy or by 'pay to view', most articles specified can be obtained on two excellent sites. The first is devoted specifically to the Gareth Williams case: http://tswktm.blogspot.com. The second has most relevant items (if you search) plus other articles by featured journalists placing their work in context--http://journalisted.com/. As it happens, the sheer profusion of journalistic output has precipitated me to refine and further codify the various types of SPIJ (State-compromised Pseudo-Investigative Journalism). That research will be placed on the NFB web-site in due course.

(5) Having (hopefully) put 'official conspiracy theorists' to the sword, I look at unofficial conspiracy theorists, just as pernicious in spreading disinformation, and at times equally ludicrous.

(6) Some journalists have acquitted themselves honourably, and other commentators raised useful points: all are analysed and given due credit.

Part Two, in NFB11, will cover:

(6) The inquest. In particular we will look at what contradicts and illuminates the earlier narrative. Not just media stories, but inter-agency friction, especially the role of SO15 (anti-terrorist squad) as a lightning rod protecting MI6.

(7) Reasoned conjecture as to the possible involvement of domestic and overseas secret state agencies.

(8) A reprise/summary of suspicious aspects to this case: disinformation peddled, facts/lines of inquiry glossed over, agendas pursued. Sifting should highlight the questions to be answered, and who exactly needs to answer them. This will hopefully help his family and other interested parties achieve closure'.

WHY GARETH WILLIAMS IS IMPORTANT

Detailed biographical speculation need not concern us , but a few points. Welsh in origin, hailing from the lovely island of Anglesey, Gareth was somewhat solitary, his main hobby cycling to a high level of proficiency. A mathematical genius who obtained a PhD at a young age, but 'kept himself to himself'. Regarding this consensus view, two comments.

First, his family would not realistically know all details of his intimate personal life--especially as he had lived away from home for many years.

Second, the image of Gareth as a 'loner' has been propagated by MI6, the very body that prevented homicide police talking directly to actual friends (within SIS/GCHQ) who might have a different story to tell.

Fragments of his career, most uncontested, have emerged, and given the lack of dispute (one source aside, it seems reasonable to put them together chronologically, pending further illumination. Recruited at Manchester University in 2000 he joined GCHQ Cheltenham (the British state's listening/surveillance centre) in 2001. Rather less glamorous than MI6 or MI5, GCHQ is nonetheless indispensable to the UK's intelligence apparatus. Integrally linked with, and subordinate to, the USA's National Security Agency (NSA) , this nexus has done GCHQ no harm since 9/11, as perceived CIA failures at that time led the Bush White House to favour the NSA over the CIA. Williams first assignment of note was a trip to Bulgaria, on behalf of MI5. In 2003 he supposedly spent 6 months at the Menwith Hill listening centre, Yorkshire . In 2006 he worked at Fort Meade Texas, home base of the US 'National Security Agency' (NSA), their GCHQ equivalent, and reportedly visited frequently, up to four times a year, in three to four week stints . It has been suggested that Williams first rose to internal prominence helping monitor/foil the August 2006 'Liquid Bomb Plot'.

He seems to have been an outstanding code-breaker, helping to monitor Taliban communications in Afghanistan (two trips to Kabul claimed) and 'serious crime' suspects at home . A clue to his Afghan role can be gleaned from a 2008 story about the Taliban using Skype calls (rather than land-lines/traditional mobiles) to evade MI6 detection. Apparently, the "British and American governments are investing considerable resources to crack the codes" --Williams was most likely one. Al Qaeda and their allies were not just tackled overseas--he played some part in a recent operation whereby three aeroplanes fitted with listening devices swept over a city the size of Bradford to hoover up all mobile phone conversations for analysis . The Bradford reference is no accident, given its ethnic composition. It has also been claimed that Williams' took part in a "secret eavesdropping mission in Afghanistan...just weeks before his mystery death", using his skill at voice analysis to identity Pakistani-born Briton Abdul Jabbar & Ahmed Sidiqi, both involved in (alleged) recent plots to carry out mass atrocities in Europe . Whether he flew to Afghanistan from the US or UK is not stated. That might be because he visited as part of a ten-strong joint GCHQ/NSA team, according to one report.

There is no doubting the high priority work Williams probably undertook--cyber-terrorism & 'terrorism' per se are among the British state's declared highest (Tier 1) security priorities . Since his death, the importance of such work has been reiterated time and again. While such matters are usually reported in the media as the UK/West generally 'defending' itself against external cyber-threats, the reality is more complex, and the top-secret US Presidential Directive 16 of July 2002 explicitly authorises pre-emptive cyber-war against foreign enemies, something Williams would be aware of, perhaps involved in . There is an undoubted overlap between cyber-crime & more traditional illegal enterprises, and defence against Turkish Chinese & Russian organised crime was reportedly something Williams was involved in.. Of these, the Russian is the one most talked about in UK security circles. Although Williams was fast approaching the end of his MI6 secondment, on return to GCHQ he was to head up (or at least play a part in) the new 'Cyber-Security Operations Centre', continuing his work shoring up the City of London cyber-defences . It has been strongly suggested by a security source' (MI6) that Williams was "working on secret technology to target Russian criminal gangs who launder stolen money through Britain"

How vital an asset Williams was is difficult to assess without knowing how many others were involved--but he certainly had the signs of a technical high flier. Was he, however, operational in the sense of meeting/running field agents, or undertaking missions involving the assumption of fake identities & so forth, moving into James Bond territory? No hint of such has been disclosed by official sources, even though possessing at least four mobile phones is suggestive. Though certainly not conclusive: in drugs trials for instance only 10 phones or more are routinely interpreted as legally significant. An unofficial source, his friend Sian Lloyd-Jones, spoke of him having fake passports and learning new identities while visiting her London flat in January 2010 . Also, a security source' told two Guardian reporters Williams visited West London for work "monitoring foreign embassies"This contention aside, we can say Williams possessed arcane up-to-date knowledge, that would have been prized by many, whatever 'side' they might be on. There is no reason to dissent from Sir John Sawers, MI6 chief, describing Williams as "hugely talented...he did really valuable work with us in the cause of national security" .

Williams' death is luridly fascinating for the following reasons.

First, it is rare (excluding Northern Ireland) for a British spook (as opposed to asset/sub-contractor) to be killed on home soil--hence the shock.

Second, the multiple state agencies involved: MI6, GCHQ, Met Police & of course, MI5 and overseas services with an interest (the CIA/NSA for starters) make this a complex case.

Third, the mendacity of some 'journo-cops' covering this story is a salutary reminder of the parlous state of 'investigative journalism'. Additionally, the episode affords a chance to elaborate, and codify, NFB's concept of 'SPIJ' (State Compromised Pseudo-Investigative Journalism), by analysing the different types of journalist-spook relationship.

Finally, the enigma of how he died: a riddle worthy of Sherlock Holmes (or Houdini) inevitably fascinates, not least because of the claustrophobic horror it evokes. Inasmuch as the flat was locked from outside, and stories he climbed into the bag freely outlandish, a true conundrum. The official police position pre-inquest, of a "suspicious and unexplained death" was oxymoronic and ludicrous.

to see the associated video-clips filmed at relevant locations, and to read more of this 21 page article, visit our sister-site www.borderlandmagazine.co.uk where you can purchase Notes From the Borderland 10 on-line. To buy by post, either visit that site, or click on the article below on Buying NFB by post/on-line.

TIMELINE/THE KNOWN FACTS

Some facts below are contested, and others will in time become so. Nonetheless, a basic outline is essential for serious analysis.

2010

March/April: Williams reportedly told both MI6 and GCHQ that he was being followed by two (white) men in their 40s, but was apparently not believed .

May: 'unconfirmed' (and disputed) sighting of Williams at Bar-Code gay bar, Vauxhall (near MI6 HQ)

June-July: Williams has dealings with two couples, who may (or may not) be one and the same

Couple 1, of Caucasian appearance, had brief words with him between four and six times a week in the Patisserie Valerie coffee-shop & similar locations near Holland Park Tube Station .

Couple 2, of Mediterranean appearance, visited his home on one occasion at least, and did not use the intercom system to gain entry to the flat itself: perhaps indicating they had a key .

11th August: returns from a holiday in the USA using Washington's Foster Dulles airport, reportedly spoke to his sister Ceri on the phone the same day . Also visited Patisserie Valerie .

13th August: went & returned alone from watching drag cabaret artiste Jimmy Woo at the Bistrotheque gay club Bethnal Green East London .

14th August: CCTV captures him entering Holland Park Station, wearing cream trousers, red shirt & carrying a white plastic bag at 2.59pm. According to Sian Lloyd-Jones, he rang her that day, and this is the last time she actually spoke to him .

15th August: images show him shopping at Harrods and nearby in Brompton Road SW7, at 2.30pm. Wearing the same clothes--giving the impression he may have stayed out overnight .

18th August: in one account attributed to Ceri, the last day he was known to be alive--they spoke by phone . Another version says, rather, she tried but was unable to contact him. To complicate matters further, it has been reported that Williams failed to attend a meeting at MI6 that day . If both things (contact with his sister/failing to attend Vauxhall Cross) are true, a day of great significance.

23rd August: c.4.40pm, Williams' body found by two police officers, in the predominant account alerted by MI6 about non-attendance at work that day. The lesser known version is that Ceri alerting the police (and also MI6) led to them visiting. According to Lloyd-Jones, Ceri called her at 11am that day, worried she had got no answer from Gareth over the weekend . Both versions can be reconciled, but it is nonetheless still unclear as to whether the initiative to formally act on Williams missing came from MI6 themselves or they were prompted by Ceri. As will be seen later such 'cognitive dissonance' is of great importance in this case. Thus began the ongoing police investigation Operation Finlayson'.

24th August: Welsh police call at the home of Gareth Williams' parents (who were on holiday) to inform them .

25th August: first inconclusive post mortem carried out by Dr Ben Swift .

26th August: family formally identify mortal remains .

1st September: inquest opened & adjourned

3rd September: the date on which Williams had been due to return to GCHQ (& possible promotion)

6th September: Met Police release selected CCTV images of Williams' movements, and appeal for a mysterious "Mediterranean couple" to come forward.

8th September: inquest re-opened, and then re-adjourned, pending further autopsy (a second had been performed by this time) and information.

26th September: memorial service held at Bethel chapel in Holyhead, attended by family members and Sir John Sawers (MI6 Chief)

28th October: third and to date final post-mortem, by Dr Dick Shepherd, again inconclusive as to cause of death. Police repeat appeal for information on the elusive 'Mediterranean couple'

29th October: start of a slew of stories linking Williams' death to claustrophilia/bondage/sado-masochism in the media.

22nd December: Met Police release highly distinctive e-fits of the elusive 'Mediterranean couple' and publicise Williams' visit to a gay club, browsing bondage web sites & so forth. Police admit he could not have climbed into the bag and locked it without help, and assert that he was therefore not alone in the flat.

26th December: interview given by Sian Lloyd-Jones to the Mail on Sunday puts the cat among the media/spook pigeons.

2011

15th February: coroner Paul Knapman re-opens & adjourns the inquest, delayed again for further toxicological tests.

31st March: the date Knapman gave for a resumption of proceedings, came & went. As did he--retired, replaced by the experienced Dr Fiona Wilcox, who took up her new post before noon on April 1st.

5th April: exemplary 'Week in Week Out' documentary on the Williams case screened in Wales, greeted with deafening silence elsewhere.

25th June/13th August: Daily Mail claim inquest will resume in September (it didn't)

23rd August Met Police tell BBC Wales this is "still an active investigation"

2012

30th March: pre-inquest review begins, full inquest scheduled to follow three weeks later. Series of claims made by family (they suspect murder by practitioners of dark arts') and police: the Mediterranean couple no longer important, one DNA trace on body now stated to be from a forensic scientist involved in the investigation.

23rd April: inquest resumes [fuller chronology follows in Part 2 of this article].

1st May: Fiona Wilcox tells Detective Superintendent Michael Broster he was biased towards MI6, due to keeping evidence from Sebire.

2nd May: Dr Wilcox delivers a narrative verdict stating this was an "unnatural death…mediated by criminality", and that on the balance of probability Gareth was "unlawfully killed". Very brave, in the circumstances. Sebire, meanwhile, is "actively pursuing new leads".

[Magda Hassan]

[Peter Lemkin]

Fair to good summary of the commonly known things...but a BBC production and they work with the spooks and government to hide things...so missing are the couple who he was in contact with; what he may well have been working on in the US and UK; the fact that the flat was likely planted with fake evidence, including all the women's clothes and more......a typical modified limited hangout by the BBC.

[Magda Hassan]

Do they really think we are so stupid?

MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams 'probably locked himself into sports bag'

MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams probably locked himself into the sports bag where his naked body was found and was not the victim of a hit by the security services, Scotland Yard has found after conducting a review of the case.

Police have always said they were keeping an open mind on whether Gareth Williams was murdered or died as a result of an accident,possibly during a bizarre sex game Photo: AP


By Duncan Gardham

6:01PM GMT 26 Dec 2012


Dr Fiona Wilcox, the Westminster Coroner, said earlier this year that she could not rule out the involvement of the security services in the death.

The ruling sparked a review of the case by Scotland Yard's murder squad which has re-interviewed his colleagues from MI6 and taken DNA samples over the last seven months.

Detectives had believed that someone else must have locked the codebreaker in the bag and launched a search for a mysterious Mediterranean couple, who were later ruled out of inquiries. The Daily Telegraph understands detectives now believe that he probably died alone.

"They have been unable to find any trace of anyone who should not have been in the flat and every reason to believe that Gareth may have climbed into the bag himself and been unable to get out," a source close to the inquiry said.

The keys to the red North Face holdall were found in the bottom of the bag when Mr Williams's naked body was found in the empty bath of his apartment in Pimlico, central London in August 2010.

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• Blundering investigation means mystery may not be solved
  02 May 2012
  
• Spy death: 'It is possible to lock yourself into bag'
  09 May 2012
  

Two experts tried a total of 400 times to lock themselves into the bag and one claimed that even world-famous escapologist Harry Houdini "would have struggled" to squeeze himself inside.
But days after the inquest verdict a retired Army sergeant showed how it was possible to climb into a similar North Face bag and lock it from the inside.
Scotland Yard detectives have now been able to repeat the experiment with some slight differences to the way the bag is locked that fits with how Gareth Williams was found in August 2010.
Dr Wilcox, a former negligence barrister, had ruled that the lack of hand and footprints in the bathroom was "significant" but it understood that police have also been able to identify around 300 fingerprints in the flat.
The coroner also dismissed speculation that Mr Williams died as a result of some kind of "auto-erotic activity", but detectives now believe that is probably the only option left.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said the investigation remained "active" and that officers were still exploring "a number of lines of enquiry."
The inquest had heard that Mr Williams, a codebreaker for GCHQ who was on secondment to MI6, had been found in his boxer shorts and tied to his bed by his landlord and landlady in Cheltenham a few years earlier.
Video footage found on a mobile phone in Mr Williams's flat showed him dressed in nothing but black leather boots as he "wiggled and gyrated" for the camera.
He kept pictures of drag queens on his computer and had £20,000-worth of designer women's clothes in his flat along with women's shoes and wigs.
He browsed self-bondage websites and sites about claustrophilia - the love of enclosure - on his computers and phone and was looking at fetish websites days before his death.
Friends and family were upset at speculation that Mr Williams may have been gay and speculated that "some agency specialising in the dark arts" was behind his killing.
In her ruling, Dr Wilcox said there was no evidence to suggest the spy was a transvestite "or interested in any such thing".
The make-up found in his flat was more likely to reflect his interest in fashion and the wigs were "far more consistent with dress-up such as attendance at a manga conference", she said.
The suggestion that his interest in female footwear could have been of a sexual nature, was not unusual, Dr Wilcox observed.
Mr Williams's colleagues at MI6 had failed to report him missing for a week and did not turn over nine memory sticks and a black bag that was under his desk at their Vauxhall Cross headquarters, sparking rumours of a cover-up. The coroner said it remained a "legitimate line of inquiry" that the secret services were involved in Mr Williams's death although there was no firm evidence.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/c...s-bag.html

[Jan Klimkowski]

Do they really think we are so stupid?

Sadly, for the lumpen proletariat, the lumpen bourgoeisie and the totally lumpen aristocracy, the answer is Yes.

In truth, this is a pisspoor psyop, trying to slip out the news of a neutered investigation on Boxing Day.

MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams probably locked himself into the sports bag where his naked body was found and was not the victim of a hit by the security services, Scotland Yard has found after conducting a review of the case.

Police have always said they were keeping an open mind on whether Gareth Williams was murdered or died as a result of an accident,possibly during a bizarre sex game

This complete nonsense was proven wrong a couple of pages into this thread.

They just want everyone to go shopping to the sales, to buy things they don't need with money they don't have, and ignore murder and the crimes of the Volkland Security Complex.....

[Jan Klimkowski]

Well well well - did someone not get the script?

The coroner said there was no evidence Williams died as a result of "auto-erotic activity" and said any interest in bondage and female clothing was irrelevant

She levelled devastating criticism at William's employers at MI6, who did not report him missing from work for seven days. She also criticised the role of the Met's counter-terrorism branch, SO15, in the police investigation.

(snip)

Responding to a report in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday that detectives believe he probably did lock himself into the North Face holdall, a Metropolitan police spokesman said the review was ongoing.

"This remains an active investigation and officers continue to explore a number of lines of inquiry. Officers retain an open mind in relation to the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Williams."

Police still have open mind over MI6 codebreaker found in locked bag

Detectives following several leads in Gareth Williams case, after narrative verdict in inquest and review of case by Met

Caroline Davies
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 27 December 2012 13.31 GMT

Gareth Williams
Gareth Williams, the MI6 codebreaker who was found dead in his Pimlico flat in 2010. Photograph: Metropolitan police/PA

Scotland Yard retains an open mind about the mystery death of MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams, whose naked body was found in a locked sports bag in the bath at his central London flat.

Seven months after launching a review into the baffling case, murder squad detectives continue to investigate a number of lines of inquiry.

Williams was found in the padlocked bag, with the keys discovered under his body inside the bag, in the otherwise empty bath in August 2010.

Westminster coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox, passing a narrative verdict at his inquest in May, said she believed the death of Williams, 31, was "unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated".
Yoga expert William MacKay is seen attempting to lock himself into a bag like the one Williams was found in. Link to this video

She was satisfied that "a third party placed the bag in the bath and on the balance of probabilities locked the bag". She was, therefore, "satisfied that on the balance of probabilities, Gareth was killed unlawfully".

Police have always treated the death as suspicious and unexplained. One theory was that Williams died accidentally, possibly as part of sexual activity that went wrong. They said after the inquest there was no evidence of a criminal hand.

Police launched a review of the case following the inquest verdict, during which Williams's friends and colleagues at MI6, and at GCHQ in Chelthenham from where he was on secondment at the time of his death, have been reinterviewed.

Responding to a report in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday that detectives believe he probably did lock himself into the North Face holdall, a Metropolitan police spokesman said the review was ongoing.

"This remains an active investigation and officers continue to explore a number of lines of inquiry. Officers retain an open mind in relation to the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Williams."

The inquest heard from experts who had tried and failed numerous times to lock themselves into a similar bag. Forensic evidence has uncovered no trace of any other individuals being in the flat at the time. A search for a mysterious Mediterranean couple ended when they were later traced and ruled out of police inquiries.

The inquest had heard that Williams, a keen mountaineer and cyclist from Anglesey who was intensely private and rarely socialised with colleagues, had £20,000 worth of female clothing and shoes at his rented flat in Pimlico, central London. He had shown an interest in bondage websites.

The circumstances of his death also provoked speculation that it might have been connected with his work as an intelligence officer.

The coroner said there was no evidence Williams died as a result of "auto-erotic activity" and said any interest in bondage and female clothing was irrelevant

She levelled devastating criticism at William's employers at MI6, who did not report him missing from work for seven days. She also criticised the role of the Met's counter-terrorism branch, SO15, in the police investigation.

The Telegraph reported on Thursday that it understood detectives have concluded that he probably died alone and are preparing to present their findings to the coroner.

Williams, a maths prodigy, had previously been found tied to his bed by his landlord in Cheltenham years prior to his death. His iPhone, found in his work locker, contained deleted images of him naked in boots posing with his back to the camera.

The inquest heard that he was probably alive if put into the bag, but probably suffocated very soon afterwards from carbon dioxide poisoning (hypercapnia) though the coroner could not rule out the effect of any short-acting poison, which would not have shown up in postmortem forensic tests due to decomposition.

After the inquest, Williams's family called on the Met commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, to conduct a review of the investigation.

[Malcolm Pryce]

'He browsed self-bondage websites and sites about claustrophilia - the love of enclosure - on his computers'

Hey how about that! Just when you thought the idea of him locking himself in that bag was too daft for words they find evidence that he was a...a...what was that word again? Claustrophiliac! And the internet is full of 'sites about claustrophilia' isn't it? No. I Googled it and just got a role-playing game and a reference to an academic book improbably entitled, Claustrophilia: The Erotics of Enclosure in Medieval Literature Apparently ten centuries ago it was bigger than Fifty Shades of Grey.

[Magda Hassan]

How can the Sunday Telegraph discover this and not the Met or the Imtelligence services? Or that they did not want public?

Body in the bag spy Gareth Williams and his mystery links to Kazakh oligarch

The spy whose body was found in a locked bag in his London flat was in contact with the son of a Kazakh oligarch before his death.

Dead MI6 spy Gareth Williams (left) and Furkat Ibragimov








By Jason Lewis, Investigations Editor

9:00PM GMT 29 Dec 2012


Police are now examining Gareth Williams's relationship with Furkat Ibragimov, whose father is a billionaire from Kazakhstan, in the months before the spy's body was found in an MI6-owned flat.

The disclosure raises fresh questions over the death of Williams and what he was doing in his work for British intelligence and whether he had been encouraged by MI6 to develop a connection with the oligarch's son.

It is one of a series of key new facts uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph which include how:

Williams was involved in field activities for the intelligence services and was more than just the computer analyst he had been portrayed as;

One theory is that Williams may have been followed from secret meetings with undercover MI6 agents;

MI6 is now fully co-operating with the police inquiry after criticism of its failure to do so initially;
Police have re-interviewed every one of his friends and acquaintances in the hunt for clues to his bizarre death;
The mystery couple seen near his flat, who were the subject of the police investigation for months, far from being an assassination squad, were, in fact, trying to find a pizza party in a neighbouring property.
The disclosure of the relationship with Mr Ibragimov, whose father is listed as among the 400 richest people in the world, comes after an exhaustive search by police for answers into how Mr Williams a GCHQ computer expert on secondment to MI6 came to die.
His naked body was found locked inside a red North Face bag in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London, in August 2010.
An inquest failed to uncover how he had died and left open the possibility that he had been murdered and that his death might have been connected to his intelligence role.
The coroner ruled that the cause of his death was "unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated" and that she was "satisfied that on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully".
A fresh police investigation was ordered in the wake of the inquest, leading to the new leads. Detectives have not ruled out the possibility that the spy was murdered.
Crucially, they have secured the full co-operation of MI6. Earlier this year Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe ordered a "voluntary" mass DNA screening of MI6 officers to try to identify genetic material found on the bag in which Mr William's body was found.
Sir Bernard said he was angered by an "unacceptable" breakdown in communication which saw evidence withheld from his senior investigating officers. When asked what powers he had to ensure MI6 co-operated, he said: "It's the law."
According to a source with detailed knowledge of the inquiry, one of the first things that the detectives learned from this new "openness" on the part of the intelligence agencies is that far from being a back room technician, Mr Williams was "directly involved with two MI6 assets in the field".
Witnesses were asked what they knew of his connection to Mr Ibragimov., though there is no suggestion he played any part in Mr Williams' death.
It is unclear whether detectives have yet spoken to Furkat Ibragimov or his father Alijan, the Kyrgyzstan-born businessman who is a member of a circle of oligarchs in Kazakhstan known as the "Trio".
The other two are his business partners, Alexander Mashkevich and Patokh Chodiev, who own a mining, oil and gas, and banking empire in Kazakhstan.
Mr Ibrigamov, 25, is one of his four sons, and is based in London, where he has invested millions in a oil company and most recently a health drink firm called Rebootizer.
How Mr Ibragimov met Gareth Williams and whether he knew he was a spy is unclear.
They had at least one mutual friend, Missa Elizabeth Guthrie, the daughter of an American millionaire.
Miss Guthrie befriended Mr Williams in the year before his death after she shared a flat with Sian Lloyd-Jones, his school friend and a fashion stylist. She is also close to Mr Ibragimov, calling him "Shark".
The Telegraph has learned that court papers, never made public, described Mr Ibragimov as Miss Guthrie's friend and business partner and suggest that she asked Mr Williams if he could make a fake a degree certificate for him.
But when Miss Guthrie was asked about the connection between Mr Williams and Mr Ibragimov by the coroner at the inquest she said Mr Williams had "never mentioned" him.
An MI6 officer known only as witness "F", who gave evidence from behind a screen during the hearing, was asked whether, if Mr Williams had been in contact with anyone from the central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, he should have reported this to service's vetting team. "F" said she could not answer for security reasons.
Mr Ibragimov's father and his partners are the major shareholders in the London-based Eurasian National Resources Corporation (ENRC), which controls mines in Kazakhstan, Africa, Eastern Europe and Africa. In 2009, ENRC reported profits of more than £900 million.
Mr Ibragimov senior was ranked at 382 on Forbes' list of the world's billionaires, with an estimated worth of £1.73 billion, and has homes which include a secluded estate on Lake Zurich in Switzerland.
His son controls an investment portfolio called Glendesk Overseas based in the British Virgin Islands, and with his brothers Davron and Dostan, is also overseeing the construction of the first motor racing circuit in Kazakhstan, where they, and the country's controversial ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev, hope to stage Formula One racing.
Last week Mr Ibragimov, a graduate of the private European Business School in London, was on holiday in Far East and could not be contacted. Miss Guthrie was also unavailable for comment.
The connection to central Asia is only one of the new leads being followed by detectives.
They are also examining closely his MI6 role and his involvement with two field agents. Until now it had been believed that Mr Williams' work involved only computer analysis.
According to the source, detectives have been exploring the idea that the MI6 agents could have been followed to their meetings with Mr Williams leading to him being identified by foreign agents or terrorists and murdered.
This area was originally ruled off limits by intelligence chiefs when murder squad detectives were called in to examine Mr Williams' death.
At the time no MI6 officers were interviewed by detectives and only "security cleared" officers attached to police counter terrorism operations were allowed into the Secret Intelligence Service headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, south London, to examine Mr Williams' office and its contents.
It is unclear whether Mr Williams' engagement with field agents involved him going "undercover" himself or if, as seems more likely, he was giving the agents technical help and advice after meeting them at a secure location like an MI6 safe house.
Eavesdropping and computer experts from GCHQ are regularly sent on operations abroad, including with the Army in war zones, while others have played a role in bugging foreign embassies or agents in the UK.
It is known that Mr Williams had been previously sent to the US to work alongside agents from America's National Security Agency.
Detectives have also been able to finally solve one of the outstanding questions which have bedevilled the inquiry.
In December 2010 detectives issued an "e-fit" of "a man and a woman, both of Mediterranean appearance and aged between 20 and 30 years old, who, they said, were seen entering the communal area late one evening in June or July.
At the time a police spokesman said: "Having gained access to the communal area of the building, they intimated that they had a key to Gareth's flat, number 4, and were last seen walking towards it. It is believed they said they had been given a key by a 'Pier Paulo', or something similar."
The request for assistance led to wild speculation about who the couple were and what there connection was to the dead spy, including that they were part of a Mossad hit squad.
It was almost two years before the police were able to rule the couple out of their enquiries. In fact, it can be revealed, that the pair were guests who got lost on their way to a pizza party thrown by an Italian language student at a flat down the road from where Mr Williams was living.
Pierpaolo Pittari, who gave the party, lived in Alderney Street between February and November 2010 while he was learning English. He worked in a local bar and as an archivist at the Italian consulate before returning home at the end of 2010.
Last week, speaking from his home in Salerno, near the Amalfi Coast, he said: "Some of my guests got lost on the way to my flat and knocked on the wrong door.
"Someone later gave their details to the police. I saw the e-fit at the time but I did not recognise them as my friends. I still can't see any likeness.
"The picture was so generic, so vague, it was just a man with black hair and a woman with long black hair. It could have been anyone and I thought nothing of it at the time."
Detectives are also said to be re-examining details of Mr Williams' lifestyle seeking new witnesses who knew him and who might shed some light on his strange death.
His family and friends dismissed claims that he was involved in cross dressing or had an interest in bondage. But his landlady in Cheltenham told the inquest into his death how she and her husband had found Mr Williams tied to a bed in the flat he rented from them and police found internet searches for bondage sites on his computer.
Forensic officers are painstaking viewing the photographs, videos and a computer generated mock up of his apartment again trying to rule out the idea that the scene was staged by someone with a detailed knowledge of forensic investigation techniques to suggest that Mr Williams was a sexual deviant to detract from other evidence that he was murdered.
However the theory also remains that, however unlikely it seems, Mr Williams may have simply locked himself in the sports bag in his bath in a bizarre sex game and suffocated after becoming trapped inside.
A series of experts attempted to show how this could be done for the benefit of the inquest but, once inside the bag, they were unable to secure the lock to the zip. However, they did not rule out that it could be done. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "This remains an active investigation and officers continue to explore a number of lines of inquiry. Officers retain an open mind in relation to the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Williams."http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/c...garch.html