Daily Post : Spies face DNA tests in Gareth Williams probe

Spies face DNA tests in Gareth Williams probe

by Owen R Hughes, DPW West | May 4, 2012

POLICE investigating the death of Anglesey codebreaker Gareth Williams will take DNA samples from members of the secret services in a bid to find out how he died.

MI6 came under fire as a coroner said she was sure a third party locked the maths wizard inside the red holdall in which his body was found in his bathtub at his London flat in August 2010.

Dr Fiona Wilcox said he was probably killed and it “remained a legitimate line of inquiry” that the secret services may have been involved in the death.

A source at the Metropolitan police confirmed that the collection of DNA samples was being widened as part of the continuing probe but could not confirm who was being targeted.

Despite the 21 month police investigation and eight day inquest into the death of Mr Williams, 31, of Valley, his family are no closer to knowing how he died.

The inquest exposed serious errors in the probe, which was also initially hampered by the week long delay in the MI6 reporting that Mr Williams had not attended work.

Mr Williams’s relatives attacked failures by secret services and police after the coroner said “many agencies fell short” in their investigation of the death riddle.

It is now hoped that a re-focusing of the investigation and new evidence that emerged at the inquest can help shed more light on the mysterious case.

Family friend Colin Torr, from Valley, said: “It would have been nice for the family to have had some kind of closure but there were no firm conclusions from the inquest.

“There have clearly been errors made in the investigation and with MI6 involved I don’t know if we will ever find the truth.

“The family are held in great respect in the village and people continue to rally around them.”

Mr Williams would have been unlikely to invite a third party who was not a family member into his home, Dr Wilcox observed, adding: “If a third party was present at the time of his death, in my view that third party would have to have been someone he knew or someone who was there without an invitation.”

Criticising the inquiry, she warned it was unlikely the mystery would “ever be satisfactorily explained”.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, who is leading the investigation, said the inquest had raised “several new lines of inquiry and the investigation will now refocus and actively pursue all the evidence heard and all the new lines of inquiry”.