Daily Telegraph (Australia) : British spy found murdered inside bag in bath may have been killed by gay lover

British spy found murdered inside bag in bath may have been killed by gay lover

NewsCore | August 26, 2010

THE private life of a murdered British spy was coming under close scrutiny Thursday, with UK detectives probing whether he was a secret transvestite who was killed by a gay lover.

The body of Gareth Williams, who was working for British intelligence agency MI6, was found stuffed in a bag in the bath at his apartment in Pimlico, central London on Monday.

Detectives believe he may have lain undiscovered for two weeks at the residence, which is just a few hundred yards away from the MI6 headquarters across the River Thames at Vauxhall.

Women's clothing that would have fit him was found in the apartment - and the 31-year-old was known to meet men in the capital's gay hotspots of Vauxhall Cross and Soho in the West End, according to The Sun.

Mr Williams was working for MI6 on a one-year posting and was due to return to his regular job at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) listening station in Cheltenham at the start of next month.

Detectives told London's Daily Telegraph that they believe he might have had a violent row with a lover over his decision to return to GCHQ.

However, police have not ruled out the possibility that the murder could be linked to his secret intelligence work.

Security services fear that his murderer could have taken classified material - possibly held on a laptop or mp3 player - which could be sold on to Britain's enemies, according to The Daily Mail.

There was no sign of a break-in at the flat, nothing had been stolen, and Mr Williams' mobile phone was found with several SIM cards neatly laid out beside it.

Initial reports suggest Mr Williams had been knifed several times, dismembered then crammed into a large sports duffel bag. But an autopsy report proved "inconclusive" and stabbing was ruled out as the cause of death, according to Sky News.

Detectives are now studying whether he was strangled, asphyxiated or drugged.

The spys family said Mr Williams was a solitary figure who would not discuss his work with them.

William Hughes, a close relative, said: "I knew he was working in London doing something. He would never talk about his work and it felt rude to ask really."

The apartment he was living in is thought to belong to the intelligence services, according to The Sun. Ownership of the building was hidden behind a private company, New Rodina, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands. Rodina means "motherland" in Russian.

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, and the heads of MI5 and MI6 as well as anti-terror chiefs at Scotland Yard, are being kept informed of developments in the case.

Reuters : More tests on MI6 worker's body

More tests on MI6 worker's body

August 26, 2010

LONDON (Reuters) - More tests will be carried out on Thursday on the body of a man who worked for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service MI6 found at a flat near the agency's headquarters.

The body of Gareth Williams, 30, was discovered by officers on Monday afternoon in the top floor flat in the upmarket Pimlico area of London.

Police were alerted as Williams had not been seen for some time and he had been reported missing.

Newspapers reported that his remains had been found in a sports bag in the bath of his home.

An initial post mortem to determine the cause of death proved inconclusive but it is being treated as suspicious. Further tests will now be carried out.

Williams was working for MI6, which deals with foreign espionage matters, on secondment from the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the eavesdropping service.

"It's a long-standing policy of the government not to confirm or deny any individual working for the intelligence agencies," said a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office.

The investigation into the death is being carried out by the Homicide and Serious Crime Command, indicating that detectives do not believe the death to be related to terrorism or espionage matters.

"It was a terrible shock. I couldn't believe that such a thing had happened," Williams's uncle William Hughes told BBC TV.

"He had worked for GCHQ for many years. I knew he was working in London doing something but he would never talk about his work, and the family knew not to ask."

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Steve Addison)

Scotsman : Inside the secret life of British spook

Inside the secret life of British spook

By TOM PETERKIN AND MARK SMITH | August 26, 2010

THE Victorian splendour of the Pimlico flat where Gareth Williams' body was found in the most gruesome circumstances is in stark contrast to the spartan digs he inhabited while working in Cheltenham.

The sparse decor and modest kitchen of that Gloucestershire home is far removed from the two-storey flat within a five-storey townhouse in one of the most expensive parts of London.

Alderney Street, Pimlico, is also the home of two former home secretaries Michael Howard and Lord Brittan.

In Cheltenham, Mr Williams' flat with its single bed and small gas fire adjoins a property lived in by his landlady, Jenny Elliott. His bedsit is above the garage of Mrs Elliott's home and is conveniently close to the GCHQ complex.

Bereft of fancy furnishings, family portraits or homely touches, his digs give little clue about Mr Williams' background. Although the flat appears unsophisticated, it looks as if it has been tidied in anticipation of Mr Williams' return.

Yesterday Mrs Elliott said he had lived in a flat for 10 years and was preparing to return on 3 September.

"He phoned me a few weeks ago to say he was coming back," she said.

She described him as "a lovely guy, very friendly, very well-mannered and polite, and no trouble at all".

Mrs Elliott added: "He was often away. He went to America to work a lot and often combined it with a holiday because he hated flying."

Although a former Cambridge student, there was little in his background to suggest that Mr Williams would be a natural entrant into the world of spying.

He was brought up on Anglesey, attending Bodedern secondary school.

A talented pupil, he had extra tuition at both primary and secondary school before studying at Cambridge University.

He went to St Catharine's College to undertake a postgraduate certificate in mathematics in 2000 but dropped out a year later. His parents still live on Anglesey but it is understood they have been taken by police to London.

There have been a number of questions raised over the flat in Pimlico. The property was rented from a company called New Rodina, but details of the company ownership are hidden because it is registered in the British Virgin Islands and not listed with Companies House.

Land registry documents show only that the property was bought in 2000 with a mortgage from RBS.

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.”

Daily Mail : THE SPY THEY CALLED THE QUIET MAN: MATHS GENIUS, LONER AND CYCLING FANATIC AT THE CENTRE OF MYSTERY

THE SPY THEY CALLED THE QUIET MAN: MATHS GENIUS, LONER AND CYCLING FANATIC AT THE CENTRE OF MYSTERY [scroll down]

Few who crossed Gareth Williams’s path would have been surprised to learn that he was a spy.

A mild-mannered loner, who preferred cycling on gruelling lone runs to the pub or clubs, acquaintances knew him as ‘the quiet man’.

His landlady for a decade, Jenny Elliott, yesterday recalled how the 31-year-old bachelor lived without a TV in the annexe of her home, often hearing him working alone on the tapes she knew were part of his work.

‘There was never noise, never a problem,’ she said. ‘He was the perfect person to have in your home... a genuinely nice, decent man.’

Retired office worker Mrs Elliott, 71, and her husband Brian came to know Mr Williams well during the ten years he spent with them at their £500,000 home in the Prestbury area of Cheltenham, while he worked for GCHQ, the government’s listening centre.

‘It’s a real tragedy,’ she said. ‘Gareth was a really nice guy who was polite and mild-mannered and wouldn’t hurt a fly.

‘When someone has lived with you for ten years you get to know them really well, and Gareth almost became a part of the family.

‘Gareth was a very likeable person but didn’t really have any friends as such. He was a cycling fanatic and was forever off on some bike ride or another but never really had friends round.

'He was an extremely intelligent person but would not talk about his job as it was a secret, on account of working for GCHQ. All he told me was it was something to do with codes.’

The last time Mrs Elliott spoke to Mr Williams flat was two weeks ago, when he called to confirm when he would be returning to Cheltenham from London.

He was a keen cyclist with the Cheltenham and County Club and took part in uphill races - coming eighth in a recent event.

Mrs Elliott said she did not remember him ever bringing a girlfriend back to the self-contained flat, comprising a bathroom, bedroom and kitchen, above her garage.

’That’s not to say he didn’t meet girls. But if he did, he certainly didn’t talk about them to me.

‘Gareth occasionally said he was meeting some of the guys from work for a quiet drink but he wouldn’t tell me who they were or where they were going and I never pried.

'He never had a television and I never heard music coming from the flat. He was the perfect tenant and I doubt I’ll be able to find one as good as him again.’

Mr Williams had a close friendship with former GCHQ colleague Raphael L’hoste-Morton, who now works for a young people’s charity in Gloucester.

Mr L’hoste-Morton denied having had a relationship with Mr Williams, and his mother Maryse said she would not comment on her son’s private life.

Mr Williams, a Welsh speaker, was raised in Holyhead on Anglesey by his father Ian, who worked at the nuclear power plant, and mother Ellen, together with sister Ceri.

Friends recall how it was his father who led Gareth to a love of cycling and together they were a frequent sight - even recently - pounding the roads of Anglesey.

According to his uncle William Hughes, it was always apparent that Gareth was an outstandingly bright boy.

‘The family knew this from a very, very young age. He was a very clever lad. When he was at secondary school he would go to university one day a week.’

According Mr Hughes, Gareth graduated at the age of only 19 from Bangor University and went on to Cambridge to continue his studies.

‘He was quiet, unassuming. When he came home on his weekends and holidays he’d be on his bicycle riding around the lanes of Anglesey.

‘He worked for GCHQ for many years. We knew he was working in London, but he’d never talk about his work and the family knew not to ask really. We didn’t know what he was doing. He never spoke about it.’

Mr Hughes added that to learn of the murder was a terrible shock.

‘I got a phone call... I couldn’t believe that such a thing had happened.’

John Barnes, who once worked with Gareth Williams’s father and who regularly cycled with the two men, said: ‘Gareth was brilliant at maths - a genius.’

Mr Williams’s parents were abroad on holiday when their son’s death was discovered and were said to be staying last night in London. Scotland [sic]

Yard detectives were at the family home in Holyhead, where they were speaking with the dead man’s sister, Ceri Subbe, who lives with her doctor husband, Christian.

Scotsman : Race to solve secret of grisly murder in an MI6 'safehouse'

Race to solve secret of grisly murder in an MI6 'safehouse'

By TOM PETERKIN | August 26, 2010

POLICE were last night investigating the murder of a British spy whose decomposing body lay for two weeks stuffed inside a large sports holdall in the bath of a smart London flat.

The discovery of the body of the former University of Cambridge student, named as Gareth Williams, led to feverish speculation about the nature of his death, with detectives trying to establish whether or not it was connected to his work with the intelligence agencies.

Mr Williams, in his 30s, was employed as a communications officer at the GCHQ "listening post" in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

But at the time of his murder, it is understood he was on secondment to Vauxhall Cross, the riverside headquarters of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, about half a mile from the flat in Alderney Street, Pimlico.

Officers discovered Mr Williams after breaking into the flat on Monday afternoon when the alarm was raised by colleagues who had not seen him for "some time".

They found his body, as well as his mobile phone and several sim cards, laid out nearby at the top-floor flat.

A Home Office pathologist yesterday began a post mortem examination to learn exactly how Mr Williams, died.

The officer was described by one Pimlico neighbour as "extremely friendly".

Sources close to the inquiry played down speculation that the murder was linked to his secretive line of work.

One source said: "The suggestion there is terrorism or national security links to this case is pretty low down the list of probabilities."

Whatever the cause of his death, Mr Williams' murder is a severe blow to MI6 and follows last month's court case that saw former MI6 worker Daniel Houghton admit charges of unlawfully disclosing top-secret material.

The Houghton case resulted in questions being raised about the suitability of the people being recruited by MI6.

Last night, the murder led to intelligence experts suggesting that if it was found Mr Williams had put himself in a dangerous situation, then more questions about MI6 vetting procedures would be posed. Writing in The Scotsman, Professor Anthony Glees, an academic specialising in intelligence matters, suggested that "these processes are not working as well as they should".

Professor Glees added: "It is always possible that Mr Williams was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

But Prof Glees, the director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham (BUCSIS), added: "It is peculiar if this flat was, as I suspect, a Secret Intelligence Service safehouse, that someone got into the house to commit the crime without being invited in. That would be very worrying."

According to Prof Glees, if a dangerous individual had entered the Pimlico flat because Mr Williams was speaking to him in a professional capacity, then there would have been someone else from the secret services present.

"Cases like this tend to have something to do with a person's private life - whether that it is something to do with unusual sexual activity or drug dealing," Professor Glees said.

The Pimlico flat's proximity to MI6's HQ and the fact that it is owned by a company called New Rodina, registered in the British Virgin Islands, led Professor Glees to surmise it was a secret services safehouse. The word rodina means "motherland" in Russian and Bulgarian.

The property was bought for £675,250 in 2000 and remortgaged twice.

Before Mr Williams' secondment to London, he had lived in a flat in Cheltenham for the last ten years. He was preparing to return there next month.

In London, neighbours described Mr Williams as an "extremely friendly" and athletic man who enjoyed cycling and had a strong Welsh accent.

Laura Houghton, 30, a secretary, said: "His windows were always shut and curtains were often closed. I could never tell if anyone was in.

"It was strange that we never saw him come and go. I just assumed he worked away."

Eileen Booth, 73, who lives opposite, said detectives told her the murder might have taken place two weeks ago.

"A few years ago, I would definitely have known who it was that had been killed. But nobody knows each other these days," she said.

The scene of the murder is a two-storey flat on a prestigious street among a row of expensive five-storey Victorian townhouses.

Residents of the prestigious street include former home secretaries Michael Howard and Lord Brittan. Public documents revealed several current and former residents of the freehold block have links to London and Cheltenham.

Last night, Mr Williams' parents were on their way to London. His uncle William Hughes said he had no idea of the type of work the spy did.

"He worked for GCHQ for many years. I knew he was working in London doing something," Mr Hughes said.

"He would never talk about his work and it felt rude to ask, really."

Mirror : DEATH OF A PERFECT SPY

DEATH OF A PERFECT SPY

BODY IN BATH
CODE MAN KILLED

By Jon Clements and Richard Smith | August 26, 2010

The MI6 spy found murdered in his home was a quiet and modest man who never broke espionage protocol by talking about his job, his friends revealed yesterday.

Gareth Williams, 31, gave nothing away about himself and no one saw him come and go from his top floor flat.

But the avid cyclist's stealthy lifestyle gives detectives few clues as to why he was brutally targeted by his attacker.

His decomposed remains lay undiscovered in a large bag in his bathtub for up to two weeks after he was killed. He is thought to have been strangled.

Officers are investigating whether his gruesome death could be linked to his top secret codebreaker's job. They are also looking at his personal life as he is thought to have let his attacker into the five-storey house.

MYSTERY

Dismissing suggestions of an assassination by foreign agents as fantasy yesterday, security sources said it was possible he may have been attacked by a friend or casual acquaintance.

They have also not ruled out the possibility another intelligence officer could be involved and plan to interview MI6 staff and Mr Williams' colleagues.

Yesterday officers were quizzing sister Ceri in Chester, where neighbours recalled Mr Williams as "the perfect spy". Ex-police officer Cathy Stanley said: "He was quiet, kept to himself and gave nothing away about himself. Classic spy profile, I suppose." His uncle William Hughes added: "He worked for GCHQ for years. He'd never talk about his work and it felt rude to ask."

Devastated former landlady Jenny Elliott, who rented him a flat above her garage in Cheltenham when he worked at GCHQ, said he was "like a mouse".

The 71-year-old added: "I came to regard him almost like a son. I used to say 'Oh go on, tell me what you do' but I didn't badger him because they weren't allowed to say. He would just give me a cheeky chuckle and one of his beautiful smiles which lit up the room." Police broke into the flat in Pimlico, Central London, after colleagues grew concerned when he did not show up for work.

Mr Williams had been living there for a year during a secondment to MI6 from the Government's listening post in Cheltenham. He was due to return to GCHQ next week.

A postmortem failed to establish how Mr Williams was killed but it is thought he was strangled or suffocated.

Detectives found his mobile phone and several SIM cards strewn around the floor. The £1 million house is owned by a company registered in British Virgin Islands.

But insiders said it was routine practice for the UK intelligence services to use foreign firms to purchase accommodation for its staff. It is understood at least three previous residents have links to GCHQ and other agencies.

Neighbours had no idea Mr Williams was a spy and were shocked when police sealed off the street on Monday.

Secretary Laura Houghton, 30, said: "His curtains were often closed. I could never tell if anyone was in. We never saw him come and go."

GENIUS

Other neighbours include former home secretaries Michael Howard and Lord Brittan.

Mr Williams excelled at maths and was talent-spotted at Cambridge University. He cycled up to 200 miles a week competing in races for a club in Cheltenham.

Devastated parents Ian and Ellen returned from holiday abroad to help formally identify their son.

It is the first murder on British soil of someone linked to secret services since Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. He drank radioactive polonium-210 in tea.

A gchq spokesman said: "We do not comment on individual members of staff or whether they are staff."

Did you know Gareth Williams or do you have any photos of him. Ring the newsdesk free on 0800 282 591.

Metro Police : Suspicious death in Pimlico

Suspicious death in Pimlico

Bulletin 0000001938 | August 26, 2010

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has today said the man found dead at a central London flat on Monday, 23 August is Gareth Williams, aged 30 years old.

Officers attended the flat in Alderney Street, Westminster SW1, at around 16.40hrs on Monday, 23 August, following reports that the occupant had not been seen for some time.

Officers gained entry and found the body of the man.

Mr Williams' next of kin have been informed. Formal identification has yet to take place.

A post-mortem examination today Wednesday, 25 August, at Westminster Mortuary was unable to provide a cause of death and further tests will take place to ascertain the cause of death.

Officers from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command (HSCC) are investigating, and are treating this as a suspicious and unexplained death.

Anyone with information should call the incident room in Hendon on 020 8358 0200 or, if they wish to remain anonymous, Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Daily Mail : Did spy's killer steal state secrets? MI6 agents search for 'missing' laptop or MP3 player after body-in-bag murder case

Did spy's killer steal state secrets? MI6 agents search for 'missing' laptop or MP3 player after body-in-bag murder case

By David Williams, Charlotte Gill and Tom Kelly | August 26. 2010

Intelligence officers are investigating whether state secrets were stolen by the killer of a British spy.

The MI6 agent, whose body was found in a sports bag in the bath of his flat, was named yesterday as Gareth Williams.

He was a cipher and codes specialist on secondment to the Secret Intelligence Service from the GCHQ listening station, and often took his work home.

Security services fear that his murderer could have taken classified material - possibly held on a laptop or MP3 player - which could be sold on to Britain’s enemies.

The partially decomposed body of the talented 31-year-old loner was discovered in his top-floor flat at a Georgian townhouse in Pimlico, central London.

It is thought to have lain there for two weeks before it was found on Monday. Mr Williams is believed to have been on annual leave before returning to his job at GCHQ on September 3.

Detectives yesterday spent a second day in the two-bedroom flat - believed to be one of several ‘safe houses’ in that area used by MI6 - looking for clues and trying to check if anything was missing.

A security source said: ‘Whatever the motives for this killing, there is the strong likelihood that items will have been taken and that is potentially a real problem because it may be difficult identifying exactly what he had at home.’

With much of the focus of MI6 on the terror threat posed by fanatics linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, one theory was that Mr Williams had been targeted because of his work.

In the flat in Alderney Street, a mobile telephone and a collection of SIM cards had been carefully laid out - in what was described as a bizarre ritualistic scene - and officers are researching each number called.

Police said the results of a post-mortem examination were inconclusive.

Toxicology tests have been ordered to see if Mr Williams had been poisoned. Another possibility is that he was smothered or strangled before being bundled into the bag.

But lurid speculation that he had been stabbed or even dismembered was discounted by police sources.

They said the telephone numbers of escort agencies were found on one SIM card while pornographic material had also been discovered in the flat.

It is not known exactly when Mr Williams was reported missing - but one suggestion is that he had taken some time off and had been due to return to work on Monday.

Officers from Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad, with assistance from their counter-terrorist and security service colleagues, are delving into the private life of Mr Williams, seeking to discover whether he had relationship or money problems.

Another possibility is that he was the victim of a dangerous sex game gone wrong.

Tight security controlled the entrance to the flat, which is just a few hundred yards away from the MI6 headquarters across the Thames at Vauxhall.

Such were the precautions, it is believed, that eye scanners could have been used to gain entry.

Eileen Booth, 73, who lives opposite the flat, said detectives had come round and asked neighbours for their eye colour and height.

Mr Williams, a bachelor who had been subjected to security clearance before he was given the job, was described as a mild-mannered fitness and cycling fanatic dedicated to his work.

He was due to leave London and return early next month to his job at Cheltenham.

Finance worker Gemma Wingfield Digby, 26, who moved into the basement flat of Mr Williams’s building three weeks ago, said: ‘I saw him only once but he was such a sweet guy. All I wanted to do was give him a hug.’

Public documents reveal current and former residents of the freehold block where Mr Williams lived have links to London and Cheltenham.

One fear is that an area used by MI6 to house operatives - and where two former senior Tory politicians are neighbours - had now been compromised.

Former MI6 officer Harry Ferguson said: ‘There are lots of flats in this area owned by MI6 and their big worry will be that a terrorist group or intelligence group was involved.’

As Alderney Street remained cordoned off last night and forensic experts continued to search for clues, police were releasing little about the case.

Land Registry documents reveal that the block at number 36 is owned by a private company, New Rodina, whose details are hidden because it is registered in the British Virgin Islands and is not listed with Companies House.

The word rodina means motherland in Russian and Bulgarian. Several other residents were also linked to Cheltenham leading to suggestions the flats may have been used regularly by MI6.

The property was bought for £675,250 in 2000 with a mortgage from the Royal Bank of Scotland and has been remortgaged twice, in September 2005 and February 2006.

The documents show that the owner operated through a law firm known as Park Nelson, a firm which once occupied a rented office block in Bell Yard, off Fleet Street, but no longer appears to exist.

One Frenchman who lived at the flat between 2005 and 2006 is an expert in global satellite positioning, radio communications and high sensitivity antennae.

Adelaide Now : Spy's remains found in bag in bath

Spy's remains found in bag in bath

From correspondents in London | From: AFP | August 26, 2010

BRITISH police were today investigating the suspicious death of a man in London who was reportedly a spy working for the foreign intelligence agency MI6.

Detectives said the body of the Gareth Williams, 30, was found on Tuesday in the top-floor flat of an upmarket building within walking distance of the MI6 headquarters on the River Thames.

His decomposing remains were found stuffed in a bag in the bath of the property, where they were thought to have lain for up to a fortnight, reports said.

A post-mortem examination late Wednesday failed to establish a cause of death and further tests will now take place, police said.

News media reported there was no evidence he had been stabbed, contradicting earlier reports.

According to The Sun newspaper, Williams had worked for GCHQ, the government's communication monitoring centre, but was on secondment with MI6. The report said his body was found in a suitcase in the bathroom.

The victim's mobile phone and a number of SIM cards were carefully laid out elsewhere in the flat, according to a separate report in the Daily Mail.

"Officers from the homicide and serious crime command are investigating, and are treating this as a suspicious and unexplained death," said London's Metropolitan Police.

Police said they visited the flat in Westminster after reports that the occupant had not been seen for some time.

The road remained cordoned off today and curtains were drawn in the flat where the body was believed to have been found.

Eileen Booth, 73, who lives opposite the building where the body was found, said detectives had been visiting neighbours as part of their investigation, adding: "They said this probably happened two weeks ago."

Adelaide Now : British spy found murdered inside bag in bath may have been killed by gay lover

British spy found murdered inside bag in bath may have been killed by gay lover

From: NewsCore | August 26, 2010

THE private life of a murdered British spy was coming under close scrutiny Thursday, with UK detectives probing whether he was a secret transvestite who was killed by a gay lover.

The body of Gareth Williams, who was working for British intelligence agency MI6, was found stuffed in a bag in the bath at his apartment in Pimlico, central London on Monday.

Detectives believe he may have lain undiscovered for two weeks at the residence, which is just a few hundred yards away from the MI6 headquarters across the River Thames at Vauxhall.

Women's clothing that would have fit him was found in the apartment - and the 31-year-old was known to meet men in the capital's gay hotspots of Vauxhall Cross and Soho in the West End, according to The Sun.

Mr Williams was working for MI6 on a one-year posting and was due to return to his regular job at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) listening station in Cheltenham at the start of next month.

Detectives told London's Daily Telegraph that they believe he might have had a violent row with a lover over his decision to return to GCHQ.

However, police have not ruled out the possibility that the murder could be linked to his secret intelligence work.

Security services fear that his murderer could have taken classified material - possibly held on a laptop or mp3 player - which could be sold on to Britain's enemies, according to The Daily Mail.

There was no sign of a break-in at the flat, nothing had been stolen, and Mr Williams' mobile phone was found with several SIM cards neatly laid out beside it.

Initial reports suggest Mr Williams had been knifed several times, dismembered then crammed into a large sports duffel bag. But an autopsy report proved "inconclusive" and stabbing was ruled out as the cause of death, according to Sky News.

Detectives are now studying whether he was strangled, asphyxiated or drugged.

The spys family said Mr Williams was a solitary figure who would not discuss his work with them.

William Hughes, a close relative, said: "I knew he was working in London doing something. He would never talk about his work and it felt rude to ask really."

The apartment he was living in is thought to belong to the intelligence services, according to The Sun. Ownership of the building was hidden behind a private company, New Rodina, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands. Rodina means "motherland" in Russian.

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, and the heads of MI5 and MI6 as well as anti-terror chiefs at Scotland Yard, are being kept informed of developments in the case.

Daily Mail : For your eyes only: The intriguing truth about life as a 21st century spook

For your eyes only: The intriguing truth about life as a 21st century spook

By MICHAEL BURLEIGH | August 26, 2010

Whether he was killed by Islamic extremists, Russian gangsters or someone altogether closer to him, MI6 operative Dr Gareth Williams died a spook's death.

Murdered in his Pimlico penthouse - which is owned by a Russian-named, British Virgin Islands-registered company - his body was found in the bathroom, in a sports bag.

Nearby, a mobile phone and numerous SIM cards had been laid out on a table. As murders go, it is the stuff of Bond films.

Williams usually worked in Cheltenham, inside the vast doughnut-shaped complex that is the Government's top secret communications monitoring agency, GCHQ - and was reportedly on secondment to MI6.

Indeed, 'Ceaucescu Towers', as MI6's brutally modernist Vauxhall Cross HQ is known, is just across the River Thames from his apartment, overshadowing a huge bus terminal, and the gay clubs and saunas of 'VoHo' - the area's red light district.

But are GCHQ and MI6 operatives such as Williams really James Bond figures? And what exactly do they do?

Gone are the days when agents were recruited after a discreet word from their Oxbridge tutor. In the 21st century, spooks are recruited like anyone else. Posts are publicly advertised, and hopefuls must first sit the kind of psychometric test - devised to reveal their powers of analysis and observation - that many blue chip companies now employ.

Nor are the successful candidates guaranteed an exotic life of high jinks and murky subterfuge. While television series such as Spooks - which is about the domestic intelligence service, MI5 - have glamourised life in Britain's secret services and have certainly proved a useful recruitment tool, the daily reality is rather less dramatic.

Many of the workers at GCHQ, for example, spend their days - and often nights - trawling through billions of emails, text messages and telephone calls, looking out for the one communication that might prove crucial.

They seek to glean intelligence on a wide range of targets, including terrorists, organised criminals and hostile foreign governments. They also seek to foil the growing threat of cyber attacks launched against Britain's banking system.

In 1998 they played a major role in locating the fugitive murderer Kenneth Noye - after he fled to southern Spain - by tracking his mobile phone.

During the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, GCHQ waged a sophisticated electronic war against the IRA. It used electronic signals to prematurely detonate radio-controlled bombs, or listened in on telephone conversations between terrorists, looking out for such phrases as 'Are you coming out for a drink then?' - meaning an attack was imminent - or 'the bricks are in the wall' - a bomb is in place.

Much of this expertise will now have been re-directed, along with GCHQ manpower, to pick up fanatical Islamists using coded language about the imminence of a 'big wedding', a favourite code for a bomb attack.

But some of their operations seem downright bizarre. After the entire electricity grid in Auckland went down in the late 1990s, for example, GCHQ helped the New Zealand authorities trace the cyber-attack back to a group named the 'Anti-Christ Doom Squad', which had managed this feat from a laptop in an Amsterdam drug café.

GCHQ also eavesdropped on UN diplomats from six (friendly) nations crucial to the Security Council's second resolution on the permissibility of the Iraq War. Some, including Mexico, are still demanding an official apology from the UK.

Holding a doctorate in maths, Williams would have been wellqualified to work in a service which uses extremely complicated decryption methods to access sensitive - and heavily protected - information.

No wonder one former landlady said that the only noise she heard from Williams's otherwise hushed flat was the whirr of audio tapes.

Much of the work of GCHQ overlaps with that of MI6, who deal with real people rather than data pulsing through the ether. But most of MI6's agents are also worlds apart from the fictional figure of James Bond.

The majority of MI6 agents work in office jobs, inside the Vauxhall Cross complex. Here, they also sift through masses of data, about 90 per cent of which is 'open source'.

That means it is available to you or I, in newspapers or via the internet. They certainly bring acute analytical skills to the table, but several former ministers have openly questioned the value of what they yield.

Indeed, only 150 or so MI6 personnel are actually stationed abroad as secret agents. They are usually 'camouflaged' as counsellor, first secretary or protocol officer on the official lists of serving British diplomats working in key embassies.

Their main job is to recruit foreign agents, often people with inside knowledge on defence or commercial matters - the links between the security services and British business run deep - that might give an edge to British interests.

Some of these contacts will volunteer their services; others will have to be blackmailed or coerced into co-operating.

These operatives will spend much of their time hanging around the sort of places where lonely businessmen, civil servants, politicians or journalists congregate.

In fact, it used to be said that MI6's real work began after 6pm, when the interminable round of diplomatic cocktail parties started.

Being the life and soul of the party, rather than a gormless wallflower, was essential to the job, which may explain why so many men like Guy Burgess or Donald Maclean - the notorious KGB double agents - became hopeless drunks.

It was a tradition that continued with rogue MI5 officer Michael Bettany. On one occasion, when caught the worse for wear travelling on a train without a ticket, he shouted: 'You can't arrest me, I'm a spy.' Indeed he was, selling British secrets to the Russians, for which he was jailed in 1984.

Of course, nowadays, MI6's contemporary Al Qaeda and Taliban opponents are not to be found sipping gin at embassy receptions.

And so a handful of MI6 agents will be getting down and dirty, not just with their opposite numbers in the Middle East, but with the local people who inhabit dusty mountain encampments.

Chief among their tasks will be monitoring British subjects who claim to be in Afghanistan or Pakistan attending family weddings when they are really planning the next London Tube bombing in a terrorist training camp.

These agents will also be directing covert strikes on Taliban leaders, while simultaneously seeking to peel off the more amenable or corruptible ones to join the Afghan government.

This is extremely dangerous work, requiring a clear sense of purpose and nerves of steel. But they are also the minority.

Regardless of how Dr Williams died, and it may be that he was killed by someone close to him for reasons that were obscurely personal, he was part of a highly secretive, but often surprisingly mundane, culture.

And that, presumably, is why his mysterious death is the exception, rather than the rule.

MICHAEL BURLEIGH is the author of Blood And Rage: A Cultural History Of Terrorism (Harper Perennial, £9.99).

The Australian : Security breach probe after British spy is found dead, stuffed in a bag

Security breach probe after British spy is found dead, stuffed in a bag

Adam Fresco, Fiona Hamilton | From: The Times | August 26, 2010

DETECTIVES investigating the murder of a British spy found stuffed into a sports bag are focusing on his private life in search of a motive.

Potential national security breaches are also being examined after Gareth Williams, 30, lay dead in his London flat, close to MI6 headquarters, for up to a fortnight.

The Home Secretary and the heads of MI5, MI6 as well as anti-terror chiefs at Scotland Yard, are being kept informed of developments.

The spy's family spoke last night of a solitary figure who would not discuss his work with them. William Hughes, a close relative, said: “I knew he was working in London doing something. He would never talk about his work and it felt rude to ask really.”

Mr Williams, who was single, had been on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, the government's top-secret listening post in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, for the past year.

A post-mortem examination yesterday was inconclusive, although it is understood that there were no stab wounds on the body. Sources said that a “national security” motivation for the murder was unlikely.

Mr Williams's body was discovered when police broke into his Pimlico flat on Monday night. He had moved to London in 2009 after living in Cheltenham while working at GCHQ, where he was due return next month.

It is believed that his decomposed body, found in a bag in the bath, could have been there for two weeks.

It is understood that Mr Williams, a bright student who took university courses at secondary school, was recruited while taking an MA in the advanced study in mathematics at Cambridge University in 2000. He dropped out of the year-long course.

He lodged in a self-contained granny flat in Cheltenham for almost a decade and had recently made arrangements to return. Jenny Elliott, 71, his former landlady, said that the intelligence analyst rarely entertained and did not appear to have a girlfriend during his time in Cheltenham.

She said: “Gareth was a really nice guy who was polite and mild-mannered and wouldn't hurt a fly. But he didn't really seem to have much of a circle of friends. As far as I'm aware, he never bought a girl back in the 10 years I knew him, although that's not to say he didn't meet girls.

“He was an extremely intelligent person but would not talk about his job as it was a secret, on account of working for GCHQ. All he told me was it was something to do with codes.”

A keen cyclist and runner, Mr Williams was a member of the Cheltenham and County Cycle Club. A fellow cyclist told The Times: “He turned up at events, rode very well and then went on his way. He never took part in any of our more social rides.”

The spy's family - Ian, his father, Ellen, his mother, and Ceri, his sister - were told of his death at their home in Holyhead, North Wales.

The company that owned the flat that Mr Williams lived in is called New Rodina, which means “new home” or “new homeland” in Russian. Details of its ownership are not available because it is registered in the British Virgin Islands and not listed with Companies House. Neighbours include the former home secretaries Michael Howard and Lord Brittan.

Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, died in a London hospital after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 in 2006.

GCHQ declined to comment. It is believed that Mr Williams had been seconded to MI6 to provide specialist electronic intelligence assistance.

The Times

Daily Mail : Riddle of the missing two weeks: Why did body of British spy with 'secretive' private life lie undiscovered for so long?

Riddle of the missing two weeks: Why did body of British spy with 'secretive' private life lie undiscovered for so long?

* Police probe claims Gareth Williams had double life outside work
* Shocked family describe him as a 'very, very private person'
* Post-mortem inconclusive: Was spy strangled or poisoned?

By Daily Mail Reporter | August 26, 2010

Detectives investigating the murder of a British spy were picking over his private life today for clues that could identify his killer.

The decomposing body of codes expert Gareth Williams, 30, was found stuffed into a bag in the bath of his London Government flat.

He was days from completing a one-year secondment to the headquarters of MI6 from his job at national 'listening post' GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

Further tests were taking place to determine how the cycling and fitness fanatic met his death after a post-mortem examination was inconclusive.

They could reveal if Mr Williams was strangled or asphyxiated, as well as if drugs or alcohol were present in his system.

Police believe Mr Williams's body could have lain undiscovered for up to a fortnight. Mystery still surrounds why no-one raised the alarm sooner.

It is thought he was on holiday at the time of his death. Another explanation may lie in claims that he travelled regularly to the U.S. for his work.

Detectives believe the key to the case could lie in his private life. His family said he was an extremely reserved person who kept himself very much to himself.

But investigators will be attempting to discover if the quietly spoken, mild-mannered codes and ciphers expert was leading a double life which he kept from his colleagues.

There have already been a series of lurid claims about his personal affairs while others have raised the possibility that his death was a sex game gone wrong.

Police sources said the telephone numbers of escort agencies were found on one SIM card while pornographic material had also been discovered in the flat

Detectives are examining his mobile phone and a number of Sim cards found at the address, a top-floor flat at a Georgian townhouse in Pimlico, central London.

Several clues are believed to have emerged from the analysis of telephone numbers called and received on the phone.

Parents Ian and Ellen travelled to London with his sister Ceri today from their home in Anglesey to speak to police and identify his body.

William Hughes, Mrs Williams’s cousin, said the family was deeply shocked. He said: 'The last time I saw Gareth was just a few months ago at a family party and he was fine.'

Mr Hughes said he never knew Mr Williams to bring home a girlfriend or a partner, describing him as a 'very, very private person'.

Scotland Yard detectives from the Homicide and Serious Crime unit are investigating the death in liaison with counter terrorism officers and the security services although they have not yet opened a murder inquiry.

There are no obvious signs of a robbery at the flat, believed to be one of several MI6-owned 'safe houses' in the Pimlico area.

However, security sources say they have a problem identifying what Mr Williams had so cannot be sure if anything was taken.

Experts have carried out a fingertip search of the address amid fears that top-secret work material could have gone missing.

Investigators suspect Mr Williams might have known his killer as there was no sign of forced entry at the flat in Alderney Street.

Last night it emerged that Intelligence officers were investigating whether state secrets had been stolen by Mr William's killer.

Security services fear that his murderer could have taken classified material - possibly held on a laptop or MP3 player - which could be sold on to Britain’s enemies.

A security source said: ‘Whatever the motives for this killing, there is the strong likelihood that items will have been taken and that is potentially a real problem because it may be difficult identifying exactly what he had at home.’

With much of the focus of MI6 on the terror threat posed by fanatics linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, one theory was that Mr Williams had been targeted because of his work.

In the flat in Alderney Street, a mobile telephone and a collection of SIM cards had been carefully laid out - in what was described as a bizarre ritualistic scene - and officers are researching each number called.

Tight security controlled the entrance to the flat, which is just a few hundred yards away from the MI6 headquarters across the Thames at Vauxhall.

Such were the precautions, it is believed, that eye scanners could have been used to gain entry.

Eileen Booth, 73, who lives opposite the flat, said detectives had come round and asked neighbours for their eye colour and height.

Mr Williams, a bachelor who had been subjected to security clearance before he was given the job, was described as a mild-mannered fitness and cycling fanatic dedicated to his work.

He was due to leave London and return early next month to his job at Cheltenham.

Finance worker Gemma Wingfield Digby, 26, who moved into the basement flat of Mr Williams’s building three weeks ago, said: ‘I saw him only once but he was such a sweet guy. All I wanted to do was give him a hug.’

Public documents reveal current and former residents of the freehold block where Mr Williams lived have links to London and Cheltenham.

One fear is that an area used by MI6 to house operatives - and where two former senior Tory politicians are neighbours - had now been compromised.

Former MI6 officer Harry Ferguson said: ‘There are lots of flats in this area owned by MI6 and their big worry will be that a terrorist group or intelligence group was involved.’

As Alderney Street remained cordoned off last night and forensic experts continued to search for clues, police were releasing little about the case.

Land Registry documents reveal that the block at number 36 is owned by a private company, New Rodina, whose details are hidden because it is registered in the British Virgin Islands and is not listed with Companies House.

The word rodina means motherland in Russian and Bulgarian. Several other residents were also linked to Cheltenham leading to suggestions the flats may have been used regularly by MI6.

The property was bought for £675,250 in 2000 with a mortgage from the Royal Bank of Scotland and has been remortgaged twice, in September 2005 and February 2006.

The documents show that the owner operated through a law firm known as Park Nelson, a firm which once occupied a rented office block in Bell Yard, off Fleet Street, but no longer appears to exist.

One Frenchman who lived at the flat between 2005 and 2006 is an expert in global satellite positioning, radio communications and high sensitivity antennae.

Few who crossed Gareth Williams’s path would have been surprised to learn that he was a spy.

A mild-mannered loner, who preferred cycling on gruelling lone runs to the pub or clubs, acquaintances knew him as ‘the quiet man’.

His landlady for a decade, Jenny Elliott, yesterday recalled how the 31-year-old bachelor lived without a TV in the annexe of her home, often hearing him working alone on the tapes she knew were part of his work.

‘There was never noise, never a problem,’ she said. ‘He was the perfect person to have in your home... a genuinely nice, decent man.’

Retired office worker Mrs Elliott, 71, and her husband Brian came to know Mr Williams well during the ten years he spent with them at their £500,000 home in the Prestbury area of Cheltenham, while he worked for GCHQ, the government’s listening centre.

‘It’s a real tragedy,’ she said. ‘Gareth was a really nice guy who was polite and mild-mannered and wouldn’t hurt a fly.

‘When someone has lived with you for ten years you get to know them really well, and Gareth almost became a part of the family.

‘Gareth was a very likeable person but didn’t really have any friends as such. He was a cycling fanatic and was forever off on some bike ride or another but never really had friends round.

'He was an extremely intelligent person but would not talk about his job as it was a secret, on account of working for GCHQ. All he told me was it was something to do with codes.’

The last time Mrs Elliott spoke to Mr Williams flat was two weeks ago, when he called to confirm when he would be returning to Cheltenham from London.

He was a keen cyclist with the Cheltenham and County Club and took part in uphill races - coming eighth in a recent event.

Mrs Elliott said she did not remember him ever bringing a girlfriend back to the self-contained flat, comprising a bathroom, bedroom and kitchen, above her garage.

’That’s not to say he didn’t meet girls. But if he did, he certainly didn’t talk about them to me.

‘Gareth occasionally said he was meeting some of the guys from work for a quiet drink but he wouldn’t tell me who they were or where they were going and I never pried.

'He never had a television and I never heard music coming from the flat. He was the perfect tenant and I doubt I’ll be able to find one as good as him again.’

Mr Williams had a close friendship with former GCHQ colleague Raphael L’hoste-Morton, who now works for a young people’s charity in Gloucester.

Mr L’hoste-Morton denied having had a relationship with Mr Williams, and his mother Maryse said she would not comment on her son’s private life.

Mr Williams, a Welsh speaker, was raised in Holyhead on Anglesey by his father Ian, who worked at the nuclear power plant, and mother Ellen, together with sister Ceri.

Friends recall how it was his father who led Gareth to a love of cycling and together they were a frequent sight - even recently - pounding the roads of Anglesey.

According to his uncle William Hughes, it was always apparent that Gareth was an outstandingly bright boy.

‘The family knew this from a very, very young age. He was a very clever lad. When he was at secondary school he would go to university one day a week.’

According Mr Hughes, Gareth graduated at the age of only 19 from Bangor University and went on to Cambridge to continue his studies.

‘He was quiet, unassuming. When he came home on his weekends and holidays he’d be on his bicycle riding around the lanes of Anglesey.

‘He worked for GCHQ for many years. We knew he was working in London, but he’d never talk about his work and the family knew not to ask really. We didn’t know what he was doing. He never spoke about it.’

Mr Hughes added that to learn of the murder was a terrible shock.

‘I got a phone call... I couldn’t believe that such a thing had happened.’

John Barnes, who once worked with Gareth Williams’s father and who regularly cycled with the two men, said: ‘Gareth was brilliant at maths - a genius.’

Mr Williams’s parents were abroad on holiday when their son’s death was discovered and were said to be staying last night in London. Scotland

Yard detectives were at the family home in Holyhead, where they were speaking with the dead man’s sister, Ceri Subbe, who lives with her doctor husband, Christian.

Guardian : Gareth Williams's parents identify body

Gareth Williams's parents identify body

Parents return from holiday to speak to police as picture emerges of MI6 officer as private and mild-mannered

By Sam Jones and Matthew Taylor | August 26, 2010

The grieving parents of an MI6 intelligence officer whose decomposed body was discovered in a flat in London formally identified their son's remains today, as detectives continued to search for his killer.

Gareth Williams's body was discovered in a holdall in the bath of a flat in Pimlico on Monday. Police believe he may have been dead for two weeks.

Williams, a cycling and fitness fanatic who worked at GCHQ, the eavesdropping and security centre, was days from completing a year-long secondment at MI6.

Tests are still being carried out to determine the cause of death. Initial reports that he was stabbed have been proved false. Further tests could determine whether Williams was asphyxiated, and whether drugs or alcohol were present in his system. The toxicology tests are expected to take weeks.

Williams's parents, Ian and Ellen, arrived back from holiday in Canada and America to speak to police and to identify their son's body, as a picture emerged of him as an intensely private and mild-mannered man.

William Hughes, Ellen's cousin, said: "The last time I saw Gareth was just a few months ago at a family party and he was fine. He was always a quiet person, he was from a young age."

Hughes said he had never known Williams to bring home a partner, describing him as a very private person. "I knew he worked at GCHQ and he had been working in London but I didn't know what he did. It wasn't said that we shouldn't talk about it, I simply never asked and he never told me."

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead cycling club, said Williams had joined the club at the age of 17. "He wasn't a great conversationalist. I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did with Gareth."

Dylan Parry, a childhood friend, described him as academically gifted but socially naive. "He was the kind of person who found it difficult to engage with people on a normal level," Parry, who went to secondary school with Williams in Anglesey, north Wales, told the Evening Standard. "It was clear he was going to go far, but we all assumed he would end up in academia. Finding out he became a spy was a shock."

Williams's former maths teacher, Geraint Williams, recalled how the maths genius had transferred from a primary school at Holyhead to the secondary school at the age of 10, a year earlier than usual. "I'd heard about this amazing pupil. He had done his GCSE at primary school and got a B at intermediate level. He took the higher level GCSE in a couple of months and got an A," he said.

"It was a problem for us – what could we do with him? We got him to follow A-levels and he did A-level maths and computer science in the third form. He achieved As in them. That was a big problem because he was still only 13 so we contacted Bangor University and he followed the first year of a maths degree course."

The student left school at 15 and got a first-class degree in maths at 17, and a PhD at Manchester University. His old teacher added: "He was the best logician and the pupil with the fastest brain I have ever met. You only had to say things once, that's why he was so successful. He could understand things immediately."

Investigators suspect Williams may have known his killer as there was no sign of forced entry at his top-floor flat. Detectives think the motive could lie in Williams's private life, but sources close to the inquiry said it was not clear how he had died and played down speculation that the murder was linked to his secretive line of work.

One source said: "The suggestion there is terrorism or national security links is pretty low down the list of probabilities."

Police have begun examining Williams's mobile phone and financial records as well as CCTV cameras from streets and businesses surrounding his home. His body could have lain undiscovered for up to a fortnight as he is believed to have been on leave from work.

His flat has been the subject of a fingertip search amid fears that top-secret work material could have gone missing. Officers broke down the door of his flat on Monday afternoon when attempts by government officials to locate him through his former landlady failed.

VIDEO : ITN : Murder Probe Focuses On Spy's Private Life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT60x6-2Bc0

Daily Post : Murdered MI6 spy Gareth Williams was from Anglesey

Murdered MI6 spy Gareth Williams was from Anglesey

by Eryl Crump, Daily Post | August 26, 2010

AN MI6 worker, whose body was found in a holdall at his central London flat, was born and raised on Anglesey.

Gareth Williams, 30, was discovered in the bath of the property in Pimlico, a short distance from the Secret Intelligence Service's headquarters.

Scotland Yard detectives immediately launched a murder investigation.

His parents, Ian and Ellen, who live in Valley near Holyhead, returned from holiday on Tuesday and were taken by police from Manchester Airport to London to identify their son’s body. His younger sister Ceri, who lives in the Wrexham area, is believed to have joined them.

They were still in London last night and other family members were comforting Mr Williams’ elderly grandparents.

Mr Williams’ uncle, Anglesey councillor William Hughes of Trefor near Bodedern, said he had a phone call on Tuesday morning to say the body had been found.

He said: “It was an enormous shock. I have been to see his grandparents and they cannot believe what has happened. We are all devastated.”

A former pupil at Ysgol Morswyn, Holyhead and Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern, Mr Williams later studied Maths at Cambridge University.

“He was very, very talented but very quiet with it and didn’t mix a lot. He was very fond of cycling and always had his bike with him when he visited the island,” he said.

A former schoolfriend at Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern said: “He was a really decent honest person, he was such a nice lad, quiet and hard working.

“You knew he was going places. He stood out because at every level at school he was so far ahead of everyone else in the class.”

Last night it emerged Mr Williams’ body may have been undiscovered for up to a fortnight before his colleagues raised the alarm.

Police broke down the door after attempts by the Foreign Office to locate him failed.

Mr Williams, who was employed as a communications officer at the GCHQ “listening post” in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was on secondment to the MI6 Secret Intelligence Service.

He was due to return to Cheltenham next week after working in London for about a year.

Mr Hughes added: “We knew he worked for GCHQ.. He would never talk about his work and it felt rude to ask really.”

His Cheltenham landlady Jenny Elliott said he was preparing to return on September 3.

She described him as “a lovely guy, very friendly, very well-mannered”. She added: “He was often away. He went to America to work a lot and often combined it with holiday because he hated flying.”

Mr Williams’s London neighbours described him as “extremely friendly, athletic, with a strong Welsh accent.

A post-mortem examination carried out by a Home Office pathologist last night found he had not been stabbed as earlier thought. Further tests, including toxicological analysis of his blood for evidence of drugs and alcohol, will now take place.

Telegraph : British spy may have been poisoned or strangled, police say

British spy may have been poisoned or strangled, police say

By Ben Leach | August 26, 2010

The mystery over the murder of Gareth Williams, a British spy whose body was found in a sports bag in his bathroom, has deepened after police said they had been unable to determine whether he was poisoned, strangled or smothered.

Detectives have ordered further tests to be carried out on the body of Gareth Williams after a post-mortem examination proved inconclusive.

Toxicology tests have been ordered to see if any unexpected substances are present in the 31-year-old's body.

But police sources have dismissed reports that he had been stabbed or even dismembered.

Mr Williams had been working for MI6 on a one-year posting but was due to return to his regular job at the GCHQ listening station in Cheltenham at the start of next month.

Detectives are still investigating whether his death was linked to his work or to his private life, with one theory suggesting he might have had a violent row with a lover. However a connection with his work has not been ruled out.

Officers were yesterday examining Mr Williams’s mobile phone, which was found with several sim cards neatly laid out beside it, to find out his last contacts and when they were made.

They were also studying CCTV images from cameras near the Georgian townhouse where Mr Williams had lived alone for the past year.

There was no sign of forced entry at the flat in Pimlico, central London, suggesting the killer was someone Mr Williams knew. Nothing had been stolen.

Mr Williams’s parents, Ellen and Ian, from Valley, Anglesey, flew back to Britain from a foreign holiday to identify their son’s body after being told of his death on Monday.

The spy’s uncle, William Hughes, said: “It was a terrible shock when we had the phone call. I couldn’t believe such a thing could happen.”

Mr Hughes said the family had been given no clues as to the motive for the murder, adding that Mr Williams was “quiet and unassuming” and never talked about his job. “He would never talk about his work and the family knew not to ask,” he said.

Mr Williams was a maths graduate who began a masters in advanced mathematics at St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, in 2000, but failed an exam the following year and left the course.

He immediately began working at Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, in Cheltenham, where he rented a room for nine years from Jennifer Elliott, 71.

Mrs Elliott said: “I spoke to him three weeks ago, he rang me to say he was coming back on Sept 3. I don’t think he was very happy in London, he told me he missed the countryside.”

Mrs Elliott said Mr Williams, a cycling enthusiast, lived quietly in his self-contained flat, “didn’t have any friends as such” and had never had a girlfriend in the time he lived there.

“He was an extremely intelligent person but would not talk about his job as it was a secret. All he told me was it was something to do with codes.

“Occasionally you could hear tapes whirring from his flat, which must have been audio cassettes he used for work, but he never told me what they were.”

Security sources refused to be drawn on why it took so long for Mr Williams to be reported missing, but it is thought he was taking annual leave before returning to his old job.

Mr Hughes described his nephew as a “brilliant” man, adding: “The family knew this from a very, very young age. He was a very clever lad. When he was at secondary school he would go to university one day a week.”

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, was given updates on the investigation as part of a scheduled intelligence briefing yesterday.

Telegraph : Murdered British spy: a mathematical 'genius'

Murdered British spy: a mathematical 'genius'

August 26, 2010

A childhood friend of murdered spy Gareth Williams described him as academically gifted but socially naive today.


Dylan Parry, 34, said the GCHQ codes and cyphers expert was an isolated child fascinated by mathematics and computers.

Mr Parry, a volunteer at Westminster Cathedral, went to school with Mr Williams at Bodedern high school in Anglesey, North Wales.

He told the London Evening Standard that Mr Williams travelled to Bangor University every week aged 16 to study for a mathematics degree part-time.

He said: ''He was the kind of person who found it difficult to engage with people on a normal level.

''It was clear he was going to go far, but we all assumed he would end up in academia. Finding out he became a spy was a shock.''

Mr Parry added that his friend was someone ''people could easily take advantage of'', that he was ''naive'' and a poor judge of character.

A detailed picture of an athletic, intelligent and extremely private man was emerging today as police continue to hunt for Mr Williams' killer.

The spy died while on secondment to the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from his work at Government Communications HQ (GCHQ) in Cheltenham.

Mr Williams attended Bodedern high school on Anglesey, before graduating with a first class mathematics degree from Bangor University aged 17.

He continued his studies with an elite course at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, but dropped out after apparently failing an exam.

The university is one of the traditional hunting grounds for recruiters looking for bright young things to join the intelligence community.

Mr William's father, Ian, works at Wylfa nuclear power station and only returned from holiday in Canada and America with his wife Ellen yesterday.

The couple, who live in Valley, Anglesey, went straight to London with their daughter, Ceri, who lives near Wrexham.

His mother's cousin William Hughes, an Anglesey councillor, said the victim worked for GCHQ, the government's so-called listening post, for ''many years''.

But he keep quiet regarding the actual nature of his work. ''He would never talk about it and it felt rude to ask,'' Mr Hughes said.

Jenny Elliott, his former landlady in Cheltenham, described Mr Williams as ''a lovely guy''.

She added that he was often sent overseas, spending much of this time in America, even though he disliked flying.

Residents close to his London address said Mr Williams was ''extremely friendly'' and was often seen on his racing bicycle.

They said his curtains were always drawn and it was difficult to tell if anyone was in his smart two-storey Pimlico flat.

Fellow members of the Cheltenham & Country Cycle Club said he turned up to race at events, often very successfully, but did not join in socially.

They described him as a quiet man who did not go to the pub, but was extremely polite and amiable.

Telegraph : Murdered British spy: friends describe Gareth Williams as a 'gifted loner'

Murdered British spy: friends describe Gareth Williams as a 'gifted loner'

Athletic, intelligent and private – the picture emerging of Gareth Williams could be that of a textbook spy.

By Ben Leach | August 26, 2010

As police continued to investigate the events surrounding his death, information about the 31-year-old has begun to emerge.

Friends have described him as a cycling and fitness fanatic who was quiet, gifted, mild-mannered and a “bit of a loner”.

Originally from Wales, he studied at Cambridge University – one of the traditional recruiting grounds for the British secret services.

He excelled at maths, embarking on a postgraduate certificate in advanced studies in mathematics at St Catharine's College in 2000.

The course is described as "demanding" and normally only accepts students with first-class degrees in physics, mathematics or engineering.

But he dropped out after a year and began a career working for the secret services.

Relative William Hughes said he worked for GCHQ, the government's so-called listening post, for "many years".

"He was quiet, unassuming” said Mr Hughes. “When he came home on his weekends and holidays he'd be on his bicycle riding around the lanes of Anglesey.

"We knew he was working in London, but he'd never talk about his work and the family knew not to ask really. We didn't know what he was doing. He never spoke about it."

Mr Williams, a Welsh speaker, was raised in Holyhead on Anglesey by his father Ian, who worked at the nuclear power plant, and mother Ellen, together with sister Ceri.

Friends recall how the father and son would often be seen together cycling round the roads of Anglesey.

Mr Hughes added that the family had recognised Gareth was "brilliant" as a child and he had gone to a special primary school.

He said: "The family knew this from a very, very young age. He was a very clever lad. When he was at secondary school he would go to university one day a week."

While working for GCHQ Mr Williams lived for ten years in the annexe of a house in Cheltenham belonging to Jenny Elliott

She described him as a “lovely guy” who was private and “didn’t really have any friends as such”.

“He was a cycling fanatic and was forever off on some bike ride or another but never really had friends round.

"He was an extremely intelligent person but would not talk about his job as it was a secret, on account of working for GCHQ. All he told me was it was something to do with codes.

"You wouldn't really hear a peep from him. Occasionally you could hear tapes whirring from his flat, which must have been audio cassettes he used for work, but he never told me what they were.

"It's all very sad. I could not imagine Gareth ever making enemies who would want to kill him."

Telegraph : Murdered British spy: mystery over how GCHQ worker was killed

Murdered British spy: mystery over how GCHQ worker was killed

By Ben Leach | August 26, 2010

Police are still unsure how a British spy whose body was found stuffed into a sports bag at his London flat was killed.

Detectives have ordered further tests to be carried out on the body of Gareth Williams after a post-mortem examination proved inconclusive.

Toxicology tests will ascertain whether the 31-year-old was poisoned. Another possibility is that he was strangled, asphyxiated or drugged.

But police sources have dismissed reports that he had been stabbed or even dismembered.

Mr Williams had been working for MI6 on a one-year posting but was due to return to his regular job at the GCHQ listening station in Cheltenham at the start of next month.

Detectives are still investigating whether his death was linked to his work or to his private life, with one theory suggesting he might have had a violent row with a lover.

Officers were yesterday examining Mr Williams’s mobile phone, which was found with several sim cards neatly laid out beside it, to find out his last contacts and when they were made.

They were also studying CCTV images from cameras near the Georgian townhouse where Mr Williams had lived alone for the past year.

There was no sign of forced entry at the flat in Pimlico, central London, suggesting the killer was someone Mr Williams knew. Nothing had been stolen.

Mr Williams’s parents, Ellen and Ian, from Valley, Anglesey, flew back to Britain from a foreign holiday to identify their son’s body after being told of his death on Monday.

The spy’s uncle, William Hughes, said: “It was a terrible shock when we had the phone call. I couldn’t believe such a thing could happen.”

Mr Hughes said the family had been given no clues as to the motive for the murder, adding that Mr Williams was “quiet and unassuming” and never talked about his job. “He would never talk about his work and the family knew not to ask,” he said.

Mr Williams was a maths graduate who began a masters in advanced mathematics at St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, in 2000, but failed an exam the following year and left the course.

He immediately began working at Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, in Cheltenham, where he rented a room for nine years from Jennifer Elliott, 71.

Mrs Elliott said: “I spoke to him three weeks ago, he rang me to say he was coming back on Sept 3. I don’t think he was very happy in London, he told me he missed the countryside.”

Mrs Elliott said Mr Williams, a cycling enthusiast, lived quietly in his self-contained flat, “didn’t have any friends as such” and had never had a girlfriend in the time he lived there.

“He was an extremely intelligent person but would not talk about his job as it was a secret. All he told me was it was something to do with codes.

“Occasionally you could hear tapes whirring from his flat, which must have been audio cassettes he used for work, but he never told me what they were.”

Security sources refused to be drawn on why it took so long for Mr Williams to be reported missing, but it is thought he was taking annual leave before returning to his old job.

Mr Hughes described his nephew as a “brilliant” man, adding: “The family knew this from a very, very young age. He was a very clever lad. When he was at secondary school he would go to university one day a week.”

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, was given updates on the investigation as part of a scheduled intelligence briefing yesterday.

Telegraph : Murdered British spy: life of a modern day spook

Murdered British spy: life of a modern day spook

Murdered in a Pimlico flat registered to a mysterious company, his body found in a sports bag in the bathroom: Gareth Williams died a spy's death.

By Ben Leach | August 26, 2010

A British spy who was found dead in the bath of a flat in London was stabbed several times before his body was stuffed into a sports bag where it lay decomposing for up to two weeks.

But while his death was the stuff of James Bond films, his life – and that of most modern day spooks – was a little more mundane.

Mr Williams worked for the Government’s top secret communications monitoring agency, GCHQ – reputed to be the most secretive of Britain's three national security agencies.

Its role is to gather intelligence for the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and other agencies, while Iain Lobban, its director, is responsible to the Foreign Secretary.

But little is known about the work carried out by its 5,500 staff, whose job it is to trawl through billions of emails, text messages and telephone calls.

Through these channels they aim to gather intelligence on terrorist networks, organised criminals and foreign governments.

Staff will spend hours, days and weeks on end analysing communications and looking out for coded messages or suspicious content.

For that reason recruits are typically mathematics, engineering or science experts, or computer geeks and technicians, rather than James Bond type action figures.

Nonetheless they are subject to a rigorous recruitment process. This will usually start with a number of psychometric tests often used by blue chip companies and designed to reveal their powers of analysis and observation.

Applicants are told not to reveal details of their application to members of their family or loved ones and if successful are subject to rigorous security checks.

And while they are not banned from Facebook or other social networking sites they are told to keep their social lives clean to avoid the threat of being blackmailed.

Beyond the recruitment process though their lives bear more resemblance to that of a typical civil servant.

They are given perks associated with any public sector job, such as long holidays, a generous pension and liberal allowances when posted abroad.

Mirror : Cops have to solve it quick

Cops have to solve it quick

By Crispin Black | August 26, 2010

James Bond spends much of his time avenging fellow spooks killed by the bad guys.

But back in the real world it has always been rare for British spies to die of anything other than natural causes.

Neverthless, the murder of Gareth Williams will have sent shudders through the intelligence establishment. Senior officers from all three intelligence services will be urgently reviewing the facts assisted by policemen from Scotland Yard, specially vetted to allow them access to secret intelligence.

There are two main possibilities. The first is that the murder was connected in some way to the victim's intelligence work - the Russians are up to their old tricks or a terrorist organisation has somehow been able to target GCHQ personnel.

More likely is that the murder was connected to Mr Williams's life. He was murdered by someone he knew. This after all is what happens to most victims. There is a chance he may have been a victim of random violence. Whatever happened, the authorities need to get to the bottom of the matter fast. Given that Mr Williams had a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Cambridge University it is clear that he was a codebreaker. His body remained undiscovered possibly for a fortnight - we need to be sure that national security has not been compromised.

Independent : Mystery of the MI6 man who was found dead in his bath

Mystery of the MI6 man who was found dead in his bath

Neighbours describe reclusive man whose body lay undiscovered for two weeks

By Terri Judd | August 26, 2010

An unassuming and private character, Gareth Williams only ever described his work as "something to do with codes". Over the years he had grown accustomed to fading into the background. But when he repeatedly failed to turn up for work at the riverside headquarters of MI6, colleagues became so concerned that they called in Scotland Yard to open up his flat. From that point on Mr Williams' death – if not his life – was to be very public.

The scene that greeted the detectives inside the top-floor apartment of an expensive central London house was gruesome. A decomposing body had been stuffed inside a large sports holdall in the bath. Nearby, Mr Williams' mobile telephone had been laid out alongside several SIM cards.

Yesterday the 30-year-old's work as a communications officer at the intelligence "listening post" GCHQ, seconded to the Secret Intelligence Service, led to speculation that he had been brutally murdered because of his job. Was he the first spy to be killed in Britain since the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in 2006?

The reality, however, is likely to be more mundane. Sources within the murder inquiry led by the Metropolitan Police's Homicide and Serious Crime Command insisted that "the suggestion there are terrorism or national security links to this case is pretty low down the list of probabilities". They are believed to be concentrating on Mr Williams' private life.

While his body was discovered at around 4.40pm on Monday after the door to his flat was broken down, it appeared that he may have been dead for as long as two weeks. The first post-mortem examination proved inconclusive yesterday evening, though it did find that, contrary to earlier reports, he had not been stabbed.

Police have described the death as "suspicious and unexplained," and a further examination is due to be held soon to find out exactly how Mr Williams, yet to be officially identified, died. It will include toxicological analysis of his blood to test for traces of drugs or alcohol.

Both GCHQ and the Foreign Office have refused to say anything more than that it is policy not to confirm or deny the identity of any individuals working for the intelligence agencies. However, it is understood that Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command and the domestic intelligence agency MI5 are being kept up to date with the investigation.

Mr Williams normally lived near his work within the heavily secure environment of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), an intelligence agency in Gloucestershire which eavesdrops on global communications. But he had been based in a flat in London for the past year in a street populated by bankers and politicians.

In a twist befitting any spy thriller, the property in Pimlico, whose recent occupants all appeared to have Cheltenham links, was owned by a company registered in the British Virgin Islands called New Rodina – a term which means "motherland" in Russian. The well-to-do street is home to a number of distinguished residents, including former Conservative Home Secretaries Michael Howard and Sir Leon Brittan.

It is a far cry from the granny flat in Cheltenham, with its floral carpets, silk flowers and potpourri, that he was about to return to on 3 September. His landlady Jenny Elliott, 71, said he had been a perfect tenant for 10 years and she had welcomed his return when he called a fortnight ago to ask whether he could move back.

He was, she said, a fairly reclusive person, whose parents and sister had only visited once: "Gareth was a really nice and quiet man, but he didn't really seem to have much of a circle of friends. As far as I'm aware, he never bought a girl back in the 10 years I knew him... Gareth occasionally said he was 'meeting some of the guys from work for a quiet drink', but he wouldn't tell me who they were or where they were going and I never pried. "

Often she would hear him working late into the night: "All I heard was a tape recorder being rewound or listened to over and over, although he must have had his earphones in because I couldn't make out what it was."

"It's a real tragedy what's happened. Gareth was a really nice guy who was polite and mild-mannered and wouldn't hurt a fly," explained Mrs Elliott, adding: "He was a cycling fanatic and was forever off on some bike ride or another. He was an extremely intelligent person but would not talk about his job as it was a secret, on account of working for GCHQ. All he told me was it was something to do with codes."

Last night his uncle, William Hughes, from his home town of Anglesey, explained that he had not even told his family what work he was doing in London, only that he was employed by GCHQ. The news of his death was broken to his parents on holiday.

"It was a terrible shock," he said. "I got a phone call yesterday morning. I couldn't believe that such a thing had happened. At the time we didn't have any details – just that he'd been found in his flat. He was quiet, unassuming. When he came home on his weekends and holidays he'd be on his bicycle, riding around the lanes of Anglesey."

Brilliant academically, he had attended a special primary school, Mr Hughes explained. "He was a very clever lad. When he was at secondary school he would go to university one day a week." In 2000, he attended St Catharine's College, Cambridge, to undertake a notoriously demanding postgraduate certificate in advanced mathematics only open to students with first-class degrees in physics, maths or engineering, but dropped out a year later.

Yesterday, as forensics officers continued to examine the flat behind a police cordon, neighbours said Mr Williams had been a pleasant man, who kept his curtains closed so it was hard to tell whether he was in. One neighbour, Eileen Booth, 73, said detectives had called looking for information and said the murder may have taken place two weeks ago.

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club, said he had known Mr Williams since he joined the club at the age of 17.

He said: "I heard the news in a text message yesterday morning and it was a shock.

"We are a small club, only 20 members, and all of us knew Gareth.

"We are totally devastated. He was a really lovely young man.

"Of course, once he moved to Cheltenham he joined the club there and we didn't see much of him.

"I last saw him on our Boxing Day meeting last year.

"He was his usual self really.

"It's true that he was very quiet. He wasn't a great conversationalist.

"We were club mates but Gareth wasn't the sort to go the pub after a race so he didn't have any close friends in the group.

"I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did with Gareth.

"It was his cycling that we knew about. He was known for being very good on hill races but a couple of times he won the club's 'best all-rounder' award.

"He was also a good runner but that was to be expected, his whole family is very sporty.

"His father was a member of this club and Ceri was an athlete.

"We'll be getting in touch to offer our condolences when they are home.

"We have also cancelled a club event we had planned for tonight. Nobody feels up to it now."

David Hughes, from Clwb Rasio Mona, another cycling club on the island, said: "As neighbouring clubs, we used to come across each other all the time.

"Although I didn't know him personally, he was known around the cycling scene as a lovely person.

"His reputation was for hill races and he was a fine sportsman."

UPI : CIA joins probe of British spy slaying

CIA joins probe of British spy slaying

August 26, 2010

LONDON, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- The CIA was called in to help investigate the death of a British spy whose body was found decomposing in a sports bag in his bathtub, officials said Thursday.

Gareth Williams, a 31-year-old code breaker for the MI6 Secret Intelligence Service, supplying Britain with foreign intelligence, was often sent on secret missions to the United States. He returned to London from his last U.S. trip a few weeks before he was found dead, The Daily Mail reported.

His death in his upscale London townhouse apartment near MI6 headquarters -- said to have happened as much as two weeks ago but just discovered Monday -- has led to a flurry of speculation about how he died and why.

Security officials told the Mail they could not explain how someone holding his sensitive post could go missing for such a long time before police were called.

Detectives were said to be trying to determine if Williams was strangled or asphyxiated or if drugs or alcohol were present in his system. Police discounted lurid speculation he had been stabbed or even dismembered, the Mail said.

Williams was days from returning to Britain's eavesdropping Government Communications Headquarters intelligence agency in Cheltenham, 100 miles northwest of London, most British media outlets reported.

Despite the intrigue, Williams' death is being investigated by the Homicide and Serious Crime Command of London's Metropolitan Police, suggesting the death may be unrelated to espionage, The Guardian reported.

The newspaper said investigators suspected Williams may have known his killer.

Sun : Murdered spook was a cross dresser

Murdered spook was a cross dresser

By ANTHONY FRANCE, JOHN KAY, GUY PATRICK and EMILY NASH | August 26, 2010

MURDERED MI6 worker Gareth Williams was a secret transvestite who may have been killed by a gay lover, detectives said yesterday.

His body lay undiscovered for TWO WEEKS after he was killed and his remains stuffed into a suitcase in his bath.

Cops found women's clothing that would fit him at his Pimlico flat in central London, a short distance from MI6's HQ beside the Thames.

Keen cyclist and brilliant former student Mr Williams was days away from completing a one-year secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, the intelligence eavesdropping base.

Police are also working on the theory that intelligence expert Mr Williams may have been killed by a foreign spy.

Spook agencies in some countries target British operatives by using good-looking agents to seduce them into giving up secrets.

And Mr Williams, 31 - found murdered at his central London home - was known to meet men in the capital's gay mecca of Vauxhall Cross and Soho in the West End.

Officers broke into his £400,000 top-floor flat in Pimlico when he failed to contact colleagues. Investigators suspect Mr Williams might have known his killer as there was no sign of forced entry.

Mr Williams' mobile phone and several SIM cards were on a table. His decomposing body was in a suitcase in the bathroom.

Further tests were taking place today to determine how the cycling and fitness fanatic met his death after a post-mortem examination was inconclusive.

Mr Williams was a middle-ranking officer at GCHQ, Britain's eavesdropping base in Cheltenham, Gloucs. But he was on secondment to MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service which gathers information about the UK's enemies.

Downing Street was monitoring developments yesterday as Scotland Yard's Homicide and Serious Crime Command probed the murder of keen cyclist Mr Williams.

The Yard's Counter Terrorism Command and the domestic intelligence agency MI5 were also being kept up to date.

As the inquiry progressed it was revealed that women's clothes that fitted Mr Williams were found at the flat.

He was thought to have been dead for two weeks. A post mortem proved "inconclusive" on the cause of death. Neighbour Laura Houghton, 30, said: "His windows were always shut and curtains were often closed."

Senior Government figures were concerned that anyone with a private life as sensitive as his could hold a post in which he could be vulnerable to blackmail.

The flat was thought to belong to the intelligence services. Ownership of the building was hidden behind a private company, New Rodina, registered in the British Virgin Islands. Rodina means "motherland" in Russian.

Public documents showed that several current and former residents of the freehold block had links to London and Cheltenham.

Mr Williams' parents Ellen and Ian and his sister Kerry, 28, who recently married, were too distressed to talk last night.

A London police officer was outside the family home in Holyhead, Anglesey, North Wales.

Mr Williams' uncle William Hughes said: "It was a terrible shock. He worked for GCHQ for many years and we knew he was in London. but he would never talk about his work."

Keith Thompson, from Holyhead Cycling Club, said he had known Mr Williams since he joined the club at the age of 17.

He said: "I heard the news in a text message yesterday morning and it was a shock.

"We are a small club, only 20 members, and all of us knew Gareth. We are totally devastated. He was a really lovely young man."