Wall Street Journal : U.K. Spy's Death Remains Cloaked in Mystery

Sunday, August 29, 2010

U.K. Spy's Death Remains Cloaked in Mystery

Police Puzzle Over Math Expert's 'Suspicious and Unexpected' Demise; Case Lacks Bond-Like Intrigue of Earlier Sagas

By PAUL SONNE And CASSELL BRYAN-LOW | August 28, 2010

LONDON — When the news broke early this week that a man working for U.K. intelligence services had been found dead, his body discovered in a large duffel bag in the bathtub of his London flat, the British public sensed the start of a new chapter in the country's long history of national-security scandal and intrigue.

But as the land of James Bond fixates on what could have led to 30-year-old Gareth Williams turning up dead in London's posh Pimlico neighborhood, the saga so far hasn't lived up to the secret-scheme legacy left on British soil by the likes of Alexander Litvinenko, Anna Chapman and others, dead or alive, in the intelligence trade.

Police here have yet to determine that Mr. Williams's death had anything to do with his job at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a unit of the U.K. intelligence services that intercepts terrorist communications and protects British government data from cyberattacks.

Nor have the authorities declared that Mr. Williams's death was the result of a murder. Police continue to classify the incident as a "suspicious and unexplained death," after a postmortem examination on Wednesday failed to determine the cause of death.

No indications of the cause of death—such as stabbing or gunshot wounds—were apparent at the scene, and there was no clear sign of a break-in, a person familiar with the matter said. The person said Mr. Williams's body may have been in the bathtub for more than a week before the authorities, following up on reports that Mr. Williams hadn't been seen for days, entered the flat to find him dead Monday afternoon. Police say the investigation is continuing.

Meanwhile, a portrait of Mr. Williams is emerging, and it is somewhat different from the sexy, cloak-and-dagger narrative associated with people who wind up being swept up in so-called spy sagas. In the 1960s, U.K. defense minister John Profumo admitted to having an affair with a model who was also the mistress of a Russian spy. In 2006, Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, died in London after being poisoned with radioactive material. This summer, a onetime Londoner, red-haired Anna Chapman, was one of 10 agents involved in a much-publicized spy swap with the U.S.

Mr. Williams was discovered earlier in the week.

Mr. Williams comes from a more obscure part of the intelligence world that is more high-tech than high-gloss. A mathematics expert, he grew up on the island of Anglesey in northern Wales and began attending university at the age of 15 in the nearby city of Bangor to study math, his mother's cousin, William Hughes, said Friday.

Later, Mr. Williams did graduate work in math at the University of Cambridge, and then spent about 10 years working at GCHQ's headquarters 100 miles west of London in Cheltenham, England, said his landlady there, Jennifer Elliott.

Ms. Elliott said he had been in London for work for about a year but was due to return to the house on her property in Cheltenham early next month. He never spoke about his job, Mr. Hughes said, noting that the family was devastated to find out that their son—an avid cyclist—had died in such mysterious circumstances.

GCHQ confirmed that Mr. Williams was an employee and said he was working in London, though a spokesman for the agency wouldn't comment on his role there. A 5,500-strong agency filled with numerical experts like Mr. Williams, GCHQ works closely with the U.K. Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, which is based in London across the river from Mr. Williams's apartment. The British press has widely reported that Mr. Williams was working at MI6 on a short-term project, but a GCHQ spokesman would neither confirm nor deny that placement.

The police haven't made any leads on the case public. "We have no inkling of what happened," said Mr. Hughes. "Nothing at all so far."