Daily Mail : Police find 'no evidence' that dead MI6 agent was gay

Police find 'no evidence' that dead MI6 agent was gay

By Daily Mail Reporter | August 30, 2010

Investigators have found no evidence so far that murdered MI6 spy Gareth Williams was gay, it emerged yesterday.

His family and friends have said there was nothing to suggest he was gay and have reacted furiously to ‘untruths’ that he led a colourful homosexual lifestyle, claiming the rumours could be government smears aimed at discrediting him.

Police inquiries have supported their view that he was not gay. Scotland Yard has denied speculation that gay paraphernalia was discovered in the flat or that there is any link to a male escort.

Mr Williams was found dead last Monday at his £400,000 flat in Pimlico, central London, just half a mile from MI6 headquarters. His body was discovered in the bath stuffed into a sports holdall.

Although it is highly likely that he was murdered, the post mortem revealed no signs of a violent struggle. Toxicology results to show if poison, drugs, alcohol or asphyxiation could be the cause may not come back until later this week.

One line of enquiry is that the cipher and codes specialist could have died in a bizarre accident and that his body was later put in the bag.

Detectives are also looking at whether he may have been killed by a foreign intelligence agency seeking to stop his work on intercepting messages and code-breaking, the Telegraph reported.

The Metropolitan police continue to describe his death as ‘suspicious and unexplained’.

It was reported yesterday that £18,000 had also disappeared from Mr Williams’ bank account two months ago and had yet to be traced.

Detectives are trying to establish where the money, said to be moved by ‘complex means’, ended up, it is claimed.

The sum was reportedly moved from Mr Williams’ online deposit account. It is understood that his salary was paid into another account.

There may be a perfectly innocent explanation for the transaction, it could also suggest that Mr Williams was being blackmailed or selling information.

A security source said any ‘unexplained’ movements of money in the Mr Williams’ bank accounts were being scrutinised for clues as to how he met his death.

It emerged yesterday that Mr Williams was thought to have made at least two trips to Afghanistan, helping break coded Taliban messages at MI6’s key listening station in Kabul.

He is also said to have played an important role in the development of a highly sensitive and secret electronic intelligence gathering system called Echelon and was helping with a new system to monitor internet phone calls such as Skype.

There were also reports that Mr Williams, who was single and lived alone, had frequented a gay bar in Vauxhall, South London just yards from MI6 headquarters.

There have been no arrests and on Friday Scotland Yard issued an appeal to anyone who knew Mr Williams or may have seen him in the eight days before his body was found to come forward.