Observer : MI6 codebreaker's bizarre death provides fodder for conspiracy theories

MI6 codebreaker's bizarre death provides fodder for conspiracy theories

Gareth Williams, whose body was found inside a sports bag four months ago, joins a list of unexplained deaths that fuel conspiracy theories

Jamie Doward | The Observer | December 26, 2010

MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams, whose decomposing body was found locked inside a sports bag four months ago, is the latest addition to a small group whose unexplained deaths provide fodder for conspiracy theorists.

An early entrant to the club was Lionel "Buster" Crabb, an MI6 diver who in 1956 was dispatched into Portsmouth harbour to reconnoitre a Russian ship and was never seen again. A headless and handless corpse was found in the vicinity a year later, but there was no proof it was Crabb.

One of the most famous unsolved deaths is that of Roberto Calvi, found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in 1982. Suggestions that the Italian financier, who is alleged to have had links to the Vatican, the mafia and freemasonry, took his own life were dispelled and his death was classed as murder. Five people were tried in Rome in 2007 for the killing, but no one was convicted.

In 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian communist defector living in London, died after being stabbed in the thigh by a man holding an umbrella. A postmortem examination established that he had been killed by a tiny pellet containing the poison ricin. No one was charged and the subsequent deaths of those believed to have sanctioned the killing helped to perpetuate interest in the case. Markov's death bore similarities to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in 2006 by suspected Russian agents but, again, no one was charged.

The police have cooled towards the idea that Williams's death was linked to his job, but if he had not worked for MI6 it would have gained little attention. Fascination with his demise will end only if the case is proven conclusively to have had nothing to do with his secret service activities.