Chester Chronicle : Chester links to mystery of MI6 spy’s death

Chester links to mystery of MI6 spy’s death

David Holmes, Chester Chronicle | April 26, 2012

A CHESTER barrister is representing a former city woman and her family in a high profile inquest into the mysterious death of an MI6 code-breaker.

The death of Gareth Williams, whose body was found in a holdall at his London flat, attracted worldwide attention and huge speculation over whether his death was linked to his work with MI6 or his private life.

Anthony O’Toole, of Linenhall Chambers, is looking after the interests of Mr Williams’s family including his sister Ceri Subbe, who was living in Brook Lane, Newton, with husband Chris last year.

He previously told a pre-inquest hearing the family, from Anglesey, believed Mr Williams was murdered by an agency connected with the secret services.

Pathologists have been unable to shed light on how the 31-year-old code-breaker, who worked at GCHQ and was seconded to MI6, died last August.

Mrs Subbe, a physiotherapist, who was last year based at Wrexham Maelor Hospital where her husband had also worked a doctor, told Westminster Coroner’s Court this week that her brother was a ‘scrupulous risk-assessor’.

She said only family had keys to her brother’s flat and he would not have let in a potential killer.

“I cannot think as to why anybody would want to harm him,” she told the inquest.

She said it was ‘not particularly’ surprising £20,000 of women's clothes had been found in her brother's flat and that they could possibly have been intended as gifts.

Lawyer Anthony O'Toole told a pre-inquest hearing the family suspected third party involvement.

“The impression of the family is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services – or evidence has been removed post-mortem by experts in the dark arts,” he said.

A spokesman for Linenhall Chambers said there has been numerous enquiries from media organisations including the BBC but Mr O’Toole was not giving interviews while the case was ongoing.