Daily Star : MI6 SPY STABBED TO DEATH AND STUFFED IN SPORTS BAG TO ROT

MI6 SPY STABBED TO DEATH AND STUFFED IN SPORTS BAG TO ROT

By Jerry Lawton | August 26, 2010

A REAL-LIFE James Bond found stabbed and stuffed in a sports bag at his flat could have been dead for up to two weeks.

The decomposing body of spy Gareth Williams was found in the holdall which had been put in a bath at his flat near MI6 HQ, London.

His mobile phone and several SIM cards had been laid out in a ritualistic manner in another room of the top floor apartment.

It is thought the block of flats where he lived was owned by a mysterious firm called New Rodina, which translates to motherland in Russian.

The expert code-breaker was employed by Government listening post GCHQ in Cheltenham, Glos. But he was working temporarily at the HQ of the MI6 Secret Intelligence Service, near his Pimlico flat.

Detectives believe his work for the organisation, which gathers secret information about Britain’s enemies abroad, would have made him a target for terrorists and rival spies.

Gareth’s former landlady Jenny Elliott, 71, a retired office worker who rented him a flat in Cheltenham from the late 1990s until a year ago, said he “wouldn’t hurt a fly”.

The Cambridge University student was due to move back on September 3.

Last night Gareth’s uncle William Hughes said the shocked family had “no idea” about his nephew’s life as a spy.

Speaking from Gareth’s home town of Holyhead, Anglesey, he said: “He’d never talk about his work and the family knew not to ask.”

Gareth, 31, lived in a street of £1million houses with former Tory leader Michael Howard, 69, and Sir Leon Brittan, 70, as near-neighbours.

According to the Land Registry, the spy’s home, divided into flats, is owned by New Rodina, registered in the British Virgin Islands so no details are kept at Companies House.

It was bought for £675,250 in 2000 with a Royal Bank of Scotland mortgage obtained via a law firm that no longer appears to exist.

Scotland Yard’s Homicide and Serious Crime Command has launched a murder investigation.

Last night the street remained sealed off to all except residents.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “It is long-standing Government policy not to confirm or deny that any individual works for the intelligence agencies.”