Telegraph : MI6 spy Gareth Williams murder: police hunt for Mediterranean couple

MI6 spy Gareth Williams murder: police hunt for Mediterranean couple

By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent | September 6, 2010

Detectives investigating the murder of Gareth Williams, the British MI6 spy, are seeking a young Mediterranean couple seen at his block of flats in London.

Scotland Yard are trying to trace the unidentified man and woman, aged between 20-30, who visited the Pimlico house late at night, one or two months before Mr Williams died. It is believed they may have been visiting the spy at his top flat home but have not been seen since.

In the first detailed public appeal about the death of the MI6 worker, Metropolitan police detectives also disclosed the 31-year-old's last known movements, captured on CCTV, as he shopped in Harrods and central London a week before his body was found.

Mystery remains, however, over how exactly Mr Wiliams died. Police said he was found naked, zipped and padlocked into a bag in his bath. A post mortem has established no obvious cause of death and toxicology tests have found no evidence of drugs in his body, police revealed.

Police are working on the assumption that Mr Williams was either smothered or poisoned and "testing for any other substance continues".

Detectives also revealed in a statement that there was no sign of forced entry to the property in Pimlico where he was found, no signs of disturbance inside the flat, and that nothing was taken.

The only people believed to be unaccounted for in recent months who were seen at the flats on Alderney Street are the Mediterranean man and woman. Police have been told they were let into the communal front door, late one evening, either in June or July. Detectives want to trace them to eliminate them from the inquiry.

The Cambridge-educated mathematician had returned home from a holiday in America on August 11. Over the next few days he was captured on CCTV shopping in the West End and Knightsbridge, and catching a Tube in Holland Park, west London. He is seen in a red T-shirt, beige trousers and white trainers, carrying a shopping bag.

The last CCTV sighting of him is on Sunday, August 15, when he went into Harrods and walked towards Sloane Street, near the Dolce and Gabbana store.

Police found his body in the bath, after being alerted by MI6 staff when he failed to turn up to work, on the afternoon of Monday, August 23.

Det Chf Insp Jacqueline Sebire, Homicide and Serious Crime Command leading the investigation said: "I would appeal to anyone who may have seen, or had contact with Gareth in the period between 11th and 23rd August to come forward and speak with us at the Incident Room on 0208 358 0200, or to remain anonymous Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111."

"This remains a complex unexplained death enquiry."