Leading article: MI6 has only itself to blame
May 3, 2012
After a seven-day inquest, there are, if anything, more unanswered questions about the death of Gareth Williams than there were before. How did a "world-class" spy come to be padlocked in a bag in the bathtub of his London flat? Was he the victim of a sex game gone wrong, or was he killed in connection with his job in the security services?
Despite testimony from 39 witnesses, three pathologists and two experts in confined spaces, coroner Fiona Wilcox could only conclude that, although the balance of probabilities points to an unlawful killing, it is unlikely that the death will ever be explained.
Not only is such a verdict unsatisfactory for Mr Williams's grieving family, it also might have been avoided. And a significant portion of the blame for the confusion must fall on the security services. Serial irregularities in MI6's handling of the matter added needless muddle and mystery to an already complex situation, fuelling a whirlwind of speculation that yesterday's judgment in no way diminishes.
Had Mr Williams's disappearance been noticed earlier, for example, then vital toxicological evidence of poisoning – or not – would not have been lost to the decomposition process. Yet MI6 managers took a whole week to notify the police that one of their staff was missing. Administrative incompetence is, of course, rife in organisations of all kinds. But it must surely be in the nature of the security service's business to keep tabs on employees, and the profound apologies offered to the dead man's family does not mitigate so woeful an oversight.
Neither did the trouble stop there. Having failed so egregiously in the first instance, MI6 might have been expected to work hard to assist the police investigation. Instead, vital evidence was not disclosed, and so piecemeal were the details collected from security service staff that the counter-terrorism officer acting as intermediary was accused of bias. Is it any wonder that there have been squeals of cover-up?
Given his job, Mr Williams's death was always likely to catch the attention of conspiracy theorists. By a combination of dilatoriness and obfuscation, MI6 has only made matters worse.
Independent : Leading article: MI6 has only itself to blame
Thursday, May 03, 2012
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Independent
by Winter Patriot
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FOX : British spy likely killed by mystery person, coroner says
Thursday, May 03, 2012
British spy likely killed by mystery person, coroner says
May 3, 2012
Even after a coroner's verdict, it remains a mystery: A naked spy found dead in a locked bag, lurid details of a kinky sex life and allegations that someone in Britain's spy agencies may have been involved in his death.
A British coroner ruled Wednesday that another person was likely involved in Gareth Williams' death — a finding that puts more pressure police to uncover the cyberwarfare expert's killer and continue to investigate possibilities that include whether he could have died in a sex game gone awry or in a more sinister scenario that involved his counterterrorism work.
In Britain, coroners are asked to investigate unexplained deaths, and their findings can often carry weight as police investigations proceed.
Although Coroner Fiona Wilcox said it was unlikely that the death of Williams, 31, will ever be "satisfactorily explained," she said the spy was likely killed either by suffocation or poisoning in a "criminally meditated act." She also said it was possible that someone from one of Britain's spy agencies was involved.
Williams, described as an introverted math genius, worked for Britain's secret eavesdropping service GCHQ. But he was attached to the MI6 foreign spy agency when his remains were found in the bathtub at his London apartment on Aug. 16, 2010, just a few days after returning from a trip to the United States.
Forensic experts found some 20,000 thousand pounds worth of luxury women's clothing, shoes and wigs in his apartment. Police also discovered that he had visited bondage and sadomasochism websites, including some related to claustrophilia — a desire for confinement in enclosed spaces.
William's landlord testified during the coroner's hearing that she once found him handcuffed to his bed. She said he had appeared embarrassed after asking for help.
Still, Wilcox said there was no immediate evidence of a sexual encounter gone wrong, of suicidal intent, or that Williams' death was linked to a supposed interest in bondage. She said, however, that tales about his sex life could have been fueled in an attempt to "manipulate the evidence."
In the past, spy recruits were often cautioned that their sex lives could make them vulnerable to blackmail.
The case has frustrated Scotland Yard detectives who have been investigating the case for 21 months now and say that the secrecy surrounding Williams' job has thwarted their efforts.
"Obviously a lot of information has come out through the course of this inquest which we have not been party to," lead detective Jackie Sebire said.
But Wilcox also criticized the police detectives.
Time and resources were wasted, she said, when forensic teams investigating a DNA sample taken from Williams's hand later turned out to belong to one of the forensic scientists. She also questioned the handling of William's iPhone, which contained deleted images of him naked in a pair of boots.
Detective Superintendent Michael Broster, who was the police liason with MI6, said he had seized it from the spy's workplace and kept it until the next day when he gave it to another officer.
"I find this is either not what occurred ... or it demonstrates disregard for the rules governing continuity of evidence," Wilcox said.
Wilcox also criticized officers who interviewed Williams' colleagues without taking any formal statements.
"I find that this did affect the quality of evidence that was heard before this court," she said.
Still, the coroner said she had seen no evidence to indicate his death was linked to his work.
When the case emerged, some had speculated that he could have been the target of Russian criminal gangs or an Al Qaeda extremist.
Other media reports had said there had been a break-in at the property where he lived — a building sometimes used by MI6 to house its agents.
Wilcox said while there wasn't evidence to support a specific verdict of unlawful killing — which would need a high burden of proof — it was her opinion that the spy was probably unlawfully killed.
She said while it appeared unlikely, speculation that British intelligence agencies may have had a role in the death continued to be a "legitimate line of inquiry."
MI6 waited a week to investigate why Williams hadn't shown up for work — a delay that made it difficult for Williams' family to identify his badly decomposed body.
John Sawers, the head of MI6, said in a statement following the corner's verdict that he apologized "unreservedly" to the Williams family for the spy agency's failure.
During the coroner's hearing, MI6 accepted that Williams disliked the agency's boozy culture of post-work drinking and tedious bureaucracy, and had requested to return to his job at GCHQ.
One MI6 officer claimed that Williams hadn't been reported as missing because colleagues assumed he was preparing for his return to the southern England headquarters of the eavesdropping service.
Wilcox said it appeared unlikely that Williams could have climbed inside the duffel bag and locked it himself.
Two different specialists attempted to recreate the feat without success. Williams was discovered in the fetal position inside the bag with two keys to the bag's padlock underneath his buttocks.
Pathologists told the inquest that poisoning or asphyxiation may have killed Williams, but said his cadaver was too badly decomposed to be certain.
Williams' family, who have been left distraught by parts of the inquest, did not speak outside court but offered a statement.
The family, from Wales, described Williams as a "special and adored son and brother" and said they "cannot describe the depth of the sorrow his absence leaves in our lives."
The police investigating is ongoing.
May 3, 2012
Even after a coroner's verdict, it remains a mystery: A naked spy found dead in a locked bag, lurid details of a kinky sex life and allegations that someone in Britain's spy agencies may have been involved in his death.
A British coroner ruled Wednesday that another person was likely involved in Gareth Williams' death — a finding that puts more pressure police to uncover the cyberwarfare expert's killer and continue to investigate possibilities that include whether he could have died in a sex game gone awry or in a more sinister scenario that involved his counterterrorism work.
In Britain, coroners are asked to investigate unexplained deaths, and their findings can often carry weight as police investigations proceed.
Although Coroner Fiona Wilcox said it was unlikely that the death of Williams, 31, will ever be "satisfactorily explained," she said the spy was likely killed either by suffocation or poisoning in a "criminally meditated act." She also said it was possible that someone from one of Britain's spy agencies was involved.
Williams, described as an introverted math genius, worked for Britain's secret eavesdropping service GCHQ. But he was attached to the MI6 foreign spy agency when his remains were found in the bathtub at his London apartment on Aug. 16, 2010, just a few days after returning from a trip to the United States.
Forensic experts found some 20,000 thousand pounds worth of luxury women's clothing, shoes and wigs in his apartment. Police also discovered that he had visited bondage and sadomasochism websites, including some related to claustrophilia — a desire for confinement in enclosed spaces.
William's landlord testified during the coroner's hearing that she once found him handcuffed to his bed. She said he had appeared embarrassed after asking for help.
Still, Wilcox said there was no immediate evidence of a sexual encounter gone wrong, of suicidal intent, or that Williams' death was linked to a supposed interest in bondage. She said, however, that tales about his sex life could have been fueled in an attempt to "manipulate the evidence."
In the past, spy recruits were often cautioned that their sex lives could make them vulnerable to blackmail.
The case has frustrated Scotland Yard detectives who have been investigating the case for 21 months now and say that the secrecy surrounding Williams' job has thwarted their efforts.
"Obviously a lot of information has come out through the course of this inquest which we have not been party to," lead detective Jackie Sebire said.
But Wilcox also criticized the police detectives.
Time and resources were wasted, she said, when forensic teams investigating a DNA sample taken from Williams's hand later turned out to belong to one of the forensic scientists. She also questioned the handling of William's iPhone, which contained deleted images of him naked in a pair of boots.
Detective Superintendent Michael Broster, who was the police liason with MI6, said he had seized it from the spy's workplace and kept it until the next day when he gave it to another officer.
"I find this is either not what occurred ... or it demonstrates disregard for the rules governing continuity of evidence," Wilcox said.
Wilcox also criticized officers who interviewed Williams' colleagues without taking any formal statements.
"I find that this did affect the quality of evidence that was heard before this court," she said.
Still, the coroner said she had seen no evidence to indicate his death was linked to his work.
When the case emerged, some had speculated that he could have been the target of Russian criminal gangs or an Al Qaeda extremist.
Other media reports had said there had been a break-in at the property where he lived — a building sometimes used by MI6 to house its agents.
Wilcox said while there wasn't evidence to support a specific verdict of unlawful killing — which would need a high burden of proof — it was her opinion that the spy was probably unlawfully killed.
She said while it appeared unlikely, speculation that British intelligence agencies may have had a role in the death continued to be a "legitimate line of inquiry."
MI6 waited a week to investigate why Williams hadn't shown up for work — a delay that made it difficult for Williams' family to identify his badly decomposed body.
John Sawers, the head of MI6, said in a statement following the corner's verdict that he apologized "unreservedly" to the Williams family for the spy agency's failure.
During the coroner's hearing, MI6 accepted that Williams disliked the agency's boozy culture of post-work drinking and tedious bureaucracy, and had requested to return to his job at GCHQ.
One MI6 officer claimed that Williams hadn't been reported as missing because colleagues assumed he was preparing for his return to the southern England headquarters of the eavesdropping service.
Wilcox said it appeared unlikely that Williams could have climbed inside the duffel bag and locked it himself.
Two different specialists attempted to recreate the feat without success. Williams was discovered in the fetal position inside the bag with two keys to the bag's padlock underneath his buttocks.
Pathologists told the inquest that poisoning or asphyxiation may have killed Williams, but said his cadaver was too badly decomposed to be certain.
Williams' family, who have been left distraught by parts of the inquest, did not speak outside court but offered a statement.
The family, from Wales, described Williams as a "special and adored son and brother" and said they "cannot describe the depth of the sorrow his absence leaves in our lives."
The police investigating is ongoing.
Filed under
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claustrophilia,
clothing,
Fiona Wilcox,
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The Australian : More questions than answers after the inquest into MI6 spy Gareth Williams' death
Thursday, May 03, 2012
More questions than answers after the inquest into MI6 spy Gareth Williams' death
Fay Schlesinger and Fiona Hamilton | From: The Times | May 3, 2012
THE death of the MI6 spy Gareth Williams is likely to have been "criminally mediated" by another person who locked him a sports holdall and placed it in a bath, a coroner has ruled.
The ruling came as MI6 and the police were accused by the coroner, Fiona Wilcox, of serious failings in the investigation.
The chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), Sir John Sawers, apologised for adding to the "anguish and suffering" of the code-breaker's family, after his managers did not report him missing for more than a week, potentially allowing evidence to be lost.
Scotland Yard began a review of the 21-month inquiry last night, after the coroner and family levelled criticism at the relationship between the police counter-terrorism command, SO15, and the secret services.
The coroner found that Mr Williams died in the early hours of August 16, 2010, at the MI6-owned flat in Pimlico, Central London, where he lived.
He was probably alive when he entered the bag but succumbed either to poison or suffocation inside the holdall, Dr Fiona Wilcox said after a seven-day inquest.
She said: "I am satisfied ... that a third party placed the bag into the bath and on the balance of probabilities locked the bag.
"The cause of death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated. I am therefore satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully."
The inquest had focused on whether Mr Williams would have been able to lock himself inside the 81cm by 48cm bag.
After seeing footage of confinement experts trying to manoeuvre their bodies inside, Dr Wilcox said the the absence of foot and finger prints on the bath and tiles made her certain someone else put the bag in the bath.
The toggles were arranged with peculiar neatness, while someone may have tried to speed up the body's decomposition by turning on the heating despite the warm August weather, and disguised the smell using the bag itself, a screen across the bath and the closed ensuite bathroom door.
There was no evidence pointing to a culprit, and it was unlikely the death would ever be satisfactorily explained, the coroner said, though police said that they were following new leads that had emerged during the inquest.
During a two-hour narrative verdict, Dr Wilcox debunked a string of theories, many of which had some basis in evidence but had been embellished through lurid speculation in the media. There was no evidence that Mr Williams was a transvestite; the $A30,000 of unworn women's clothes in his wardrobe reflected an interest in high fashion, the coroner said. Some may have been gifts for his sister and friends.
Visits to bondage websites represented a tiny proportion of his online browsing and could not be seen as indicative of an active interest or having any link to his death, the Coroner said.
Dr Wilcox said it remained a "legitimate line of inquiry" that the secret services were involved in Mr Williams's death, because he socialised with very few people and would only allow those he knew to enter his flat. But she said "there was no evidence to support that he died at the hands of" spies.
Evidence of Mr Williams's death being linked to his work were also rejected by the coroner, as he was considered a "low-risk" employee. He was on a three-year secondment to MI6 from the Government's listening post in Cheltenham, GCHQ. He had not enjoyed the "rat race" in London, but was buoyant about a return to Cheltenham scheduled for a week after his death.
The coroner ruled out suicide and said: "I find that if he had got into the bag and locked himself in, he would have taken a knife in with him. He was a risk assessor." Speaking of the lack of prints in the bath, she added: "In relation to the prints found within the bathroom, in my view what was more significant was what was not found."
She said that "many agencies fell short", including the LGC Forensics, a contractor that chased a false lead for months after an administrative error. The Met's SO15 officers failed to take formal statements from Mr Williams's colleagues, some of whom later showed a remarkably poor memory of events. The coroner cast aspersions on evidence from Detective Superintendent Michael Broster, who acted as a conduit between MI6 and the Met, after hearing that he seized an iPhone from Mr Williams's office containing a video of him naked but for a pair of boots, and kept it until the next day.
Dr Wilcox said: "I find this is either not what occurred - in which case how did he acquire this phone? - or it demonstrates disregard for the rules governing continuity of evidence."
Mr Broster had also faced censure for allowing MI6 to analyse and assess the relevance of evidence, including nine memory sticks whose existence was only revealed to the investigation's senior officer this week.
On MI6's failure to report the code-breaker's absence from work for a week, Dr Wilcox said she could "only speculate as to what effect this had" on the investigation. She said that evidence given anonymously by Mr Williams's MI6 line manager, Witness G, had "stretched bounds of credibility". Referring to the manager's recollection of attempting to contact Mr Williams on the day after the "punctual" worker failed to arrive at the office, the coroner said "there was no phone call".
Speaking through their solicitor, Mr Williams's family called on the Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to review the investigation. They said they were "extremely disappointed" at the secret services' "reluctance and failure" to make relevant information available. They also attacked the "total inadequacies" of the inquiry by SO15 into MI6.
The SIS said that Sir John Sawers "recognises that the Service's failure to act more swiftly when Mr Williams was first became absent has contributed to the anguish of his family. Gareth Williams was a man of remarkable talents which he devoted to public service. The work that Gareth undertook during his career ... made a real contribution to the security of this country."
An MI6 spokesman said: "We fully co-operated with the police and will continue to do so during the ongoing investigation. We gave all the evidence to the police when they wanted it; at no time did we withhold any evidence."
Martin Hewitt, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met, said that investigations into Mr Williams's death were continuing.
Fay Schlesinger and Fiona Hamilton | From: The Times | May 3, 2012
THE death of the MI6 spy Gareth Williams is likely to have been "criminally mediated" by another person who locked him a sports holdall and placed it in a bath, a coroner has ruled.
The ruling came as MI6 and the police were accused by the coroner, Fiona Wilcox, of serious failings in the investigation.
The chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), Sir John Sawers, apologised for adding to the "anguish and suffering" of the code-breaker's family, after his managers did not report him missing for more than a week, potentially allowing evidence to be lost.
Scotland Yard began a review of the 21-month inquiry last night, after the coroner and family levelled criticism at the relationship between the police counter-terrorism command, SO15, and the secret services.
The coroner found that Mr Williams died in the early hours of August 16, 2010, at the MI6-owned flat in Pimlico, Central London, where he lived.
He was probably alive when he entered the bag but succumbed either to poison or suffocation inside the holdall, Dr Fiona Wilcox said after a seven-day inquest.
She said: "I am satisfied ... that a third party placed the bag into the bath and on the balance of probabilities locked the bag.
"The cause of death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated. I am therefore satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully."
The inquest had focused on whether Mr Williams would have been able to lock himself inside the 81cm by 48cm bag.
After seeing footage of confinement experts trying to manoeuvre their bodies inside, Dr Wilcox said the the absence of foot and finger prints on the bath and tiles made her certain someone else put the bag in the bath.
The toggles were arranged with peculiar neatness, while someone may have tried to speed up the body's decomposition by turning on the heating despite the warm August weather, and disguised the smell using the bag itself, a screen across the bath and the closed ensuite bathroom door.
There was no evidence pointing to a culprit, and it was unlikely the death would ever be satisfactorily explained, the coroner said, though police said that they were following new leads that had emerged during the inquest.
During a two-hour narrative verdict, Dr Wilcox debunked a string of theories, many of which had some basis in evidence but had been embellished through lurid speculation in the media. There was no evidence that Mr Williams was a transvestite; the $A30,000 of unworn women's clothes in his wardrobe reflected an interest in high fashion, the coroner said. Some may have been gifts for his sister and friends.
Visits to bondage websites represented a tiny proportion of his online browsing and could not be seen as indicative of an active interest or having any link to his death, the Coroner said.
Dr Wilcox said it remained a "legitimate line of inquiry" that the secret services were involved in Mr Williams's death, because he socialised with very few people and would only allow those he knew to enter his flat. But she said "there was no evidence to support that he died at the hands of" spies.
Evidence of Mr Williams's death being linked to his work were also rejected by the coroner, as he was considered a "low-risk" employee. He was on a three-year secondment to MI6 from the Government's listening post in Cheltenham, GCHQ. He had not enjoyed the "rat race" in London, but was buoyant about a return to Cheltenham scheduled for a week after his death.
The coroner ruled out suicide and said: "I find that if he had got into the bag and locked himself in, he would have taken a knife in with him. He was a risk assessor." Speaking of the lack of prints in the bath, she added: "In relation to the prints found within the bathroom, in my view what was more significant was what was not found."
She said that "many agencies fell short", including the LGC Forensics, a contractor that chased a false lead for months after an administrative error. The Met's SO15 officers failed to take formal statements from Mr Williams's colleagues, some of whom later showed a remarkably poor memory of events. The coroner cast aspersions on evidence from Detective Superintendent Michael Broster, who acted as a conduit between MI6 and the Met, after hearing that he seized an iPhone from Mr Williams's office containing a video of him naked but for a pair of boots, and kept it until the next day.
Dr Wilcox said: "I find this is either not what occurred - in which case how did he acquire this phone? - or it demonstrates disregard for the rules governing continuity of evidence."
Mr Broster had also faced censure for allowing MI6 to analyse and assess the relevance of evidence, including nine memory sticks whose existence was only revealed to the investigation's senior officer this week.
On MI6's failure to report the code-breaker's absence from work for a week, Dr Wilcox said she could "only speculate as to what effect this had" on the investigation. She said that evidence given anonymously by Mr Williams's MI6 line manager, Witness G, had "stretched bounds of credibility". Referring to the manager's recollection of attempting to contact Mr Williams on the day after the "punctual" worker failed to arrive at the office, the coroner said "there was no phone call".
Speaking through their solicitor, Mr Williams's family called on the Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to review the investigation. They said they were "extremely disappointed" at the secret services' "reluctance and failure" to make relevant information available. They also attacked the "total inadequacies" of the inquiry by SO15 into MI6.
The SIS said that Sir John Sawers "recognises that the Service's failure to act more swiftly when Mr Williams was first became absent has contributed to the anguish of his family. Gareth Williams was a man of remarkable talents which he devoted to public service. The work that Gareth undertook during his career ... made a real contribution to the security of this country."
An MI6 spokesman said: "We fully co-operated with the police and will continue to do so during the ongoing investigation. We gave all the evidence to the police when they wanted it; at no time did we withhold any evidence."
Martin Hewitt, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met, said that investigations into Mr Williams's death were continuing.
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Fiona Wilcox,
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LGC,
Martin Hewitt,
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Independent : Spy Gareth Williams was probably the victim of a 'criminally mediated' unlawful killing
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Spy Gareth Williams was probably the victim of a 'criminally mediated' unlawful killing
Kim Sengupta | May 3, 2012
Gareth Williams, the MI6 officer whose naked body was found in a padlocked bag, was probably the victim of a “criminally mediated” unlawful killing in which poison may have been used. That was the verdict reached yesterday at the end of a highly charged inquest into the death marked by accusations of an official cover up.
The discovery of 31 year old Mr Williams’ body, in a North Face holdall, in the en-suite bath of his flat in Alderney Street, Pimlico, south west London, due to his profession as an intelligence cypher expert had resulted in international interest and speculation about what happened.
The conclusion reached yesterday by coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, effectively pointed towards murder by a “third party” who had apparently managed to eliminate any evidence of their complicity. However, because of a series of blunders, one of the most high profile murder investigations in recent times may never be solved.
“It is unlikely this death will ever be satisfactorily explained” Dr Wilcox, told a packed hearing with Mr Williams’ family, representatives of intelligence services, and senior Scotland Yard officers among those attending. “Most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered”.
She continued: "I find it more likely than not that Gareth entered the bag alive and then died very soon afterwards either from the toxic effects of carbon dioxide and heat before he was able to make a concerted effort to escape from some unknown poison dioxide and heat. “I am satisfied so that I am sure that a third party on the balance of probabilities locked the bag placed the bag in to the bath where it was found.”
The Coroner maintained that it remained a "legitimate line of inquiry" that the intelligence services were involved in the death of 31 year old Mr Williams, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ at the time, although she stressed "there was no evidence to support that he died at the hands” of a government agency.
But there had been repeated revelations of shortcomings in the inquiry and this week Westminster Coroner’s Court heard that potentially critical evidence, including nine memory sticks belonging to Mr Williams and a bag of the same make in which he was found, was only handed to police this week, 21 months after his killing in August 2010.
Dr Wilcox had been particularly severe in her criticism of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism command (SO15) which had been tasked with liaising between the murder squad and MI6. At one stage she accused a senior officer, Detective Superintendent Michael Broster of collusion with MI6 and “not being impartial” in the case.
The inquest had also heard that Mr Williams’ immediate superior at the intelligence service did not raise an alert for seven days after he had failed to turn up for work and basic procedures in such a situation were not adhered to. The resulting delay of seven days, decomposition of the body in the Summer heat, enclosed in a holdall, meant that vital forensic evidence was lost and Mr Williams’ parents could not view their dead son.
At the end of proceedings the inquest heard an unprecedented personal apology from Sir John Sawers, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service [MI6] to Mr Williams’ family.
In a statement Sir John acknowledged that the “Service’s failure to act more swiftly when Gareth first became absent from work has contributed to the anguish and suffering of his family.
“On behalf of the whole organisation, we regret this deeply and apologise unreservedly. Lessons have been learned, in particular the responsibility of all staff to report unaccounted staff absences".
Sir John continued: "Gareth Williams was a man of remarkable talents, talents which he devoted to public service. The work that Gareth undertook during his career both at Cheltenham and London made a real contribution to the security of this country and of its citizens. Gareth continues to be mourned by his friends and colleagues."
Members of Mr Williams’ family, in particular his mother, had been unable to sit through some of the more harrowing evidence. Yesterday, in a statement read out by their solicitor, Robyn Williams, they said, "To lose a son and brother in such circumstances as have been outlined during the course of this inquest only compounds the tragedy.
"Our grief is exacerbated by the failure of his employers at MI6 to take even the most basic inquiries as to his whereabouts and welfare, which any reasonable employer would have taken. We are also extremely disappointed at the reluctance and failure of MI6 to make available relevant information.
"We would like to ask Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe to look into and review how this investigation will proceed in light of the total inadequacies of the SO15 investigation into MI6 during the course of this inquiry."
Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sabire, in charge of the team investigating Mr Williams death, said” "I've always been satisfied a third party may have been involved in his death and the coroner has confirmed that in her finding today. "The inquest has raised several new lines of inquiry and the investigation will refocus and actively pursue all the evidence heard and all the new lines of inquiry. I urge anyone who knew Mr Williams or had contact with him to search their conscience and come forward with any information about what had happened.”
Kim Sengupta | May 3, 2012
Gareth Williams, the MI6 officer whose naked body was found in a padlocked bag, was probably the victim of a “criminally mediated” unlawful killing in which poison may have been used. That was the verdict reached yesterday at the end of a highly charged inquest into the death marked by accusations of an official cover up.
The discovery of 31 year old Mr Williams’ body, in a North Face holdall, in the en-suite bath of his flat in Alderney Street, Pimlico, south west London, due to his profession as an intelligence cypher expert had resulted in international interest and speculation about what happened.
The conclusion reached yesterday by coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, effectively pointed towards murder by a “third party” who had apparently managed to eliminate any evidence of their complicity. However, because of a series of blunders, one of the most high profile murder investigations in recent times may never be solved.
“It is unlikely this death will ever be satisfactorily explained” Dr Wilcox, told a packed hearing with Mr Williams’ family, representatives of intelligence services, and senior Scotland Yard officers among those attending. “Most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered”.
She continued: "I find it more likely than not that Gareth entered the bag alive and then died very soon afterwards either from the toxic effects of carbon dioxide and heat before he was able to make a concerted effort to escape from some unknown poison dioxide and heat. “I am satisfied so that I am sure that a third party on the balance of probabilities locked the bag placed the bag in to the bath where it was found.”
The Coroner maintained that it remained a "legitimate line of inquiry" that the intelligence services were involved in the death of 31 year old Mr Williams, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ at the time, although she stressed "there was no evidence to support that he died at the hands” of a government agency.
But there had been repeated revelations of shortcomings in the inquiry and this week Westminster Coroner’s Court heard that potentially critical evidence, including nine memory sticks belonging to Mr Williams and a bag of the same make in which he was found, was only handed to police this week, 21 months after his killing in August 2010.
Dr Wilcox had been particularly severe in her criticism of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism command (SO15) which had been tasked with liaising between the murder squad and MI6. At one stage she accused a senior officer, Detective Superintendent Michael Broster of collusion with MI6 and “not being impartial” in the case.
The inquest had also heard that Mr Williams’ immediate superior at the intelligence service did not raise an alert for seven days after he had failed to turn up for work and basic procedures in such a situation were not adhered to. The resulting delay of seven days, decomposition of the body in the Summer heat, enclosed in a holdall, meant that vital forensic evidence was lost and Mr Williams’ parents could not view their dead son.
At the end of proceedings the inquest heard an unprecedented personal apology from Sir John Sawers, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service [MI6] to Mr Williams’ family.
In a statement Sir John acknowledged that the “Service’s failure to act more swiftly when Gareth first became absent from work has contributed to the anguish and suffering of his family.
“On behalf of the whole organisation, we regret this deeply and apologise unreservedly. Lessons have been learned, in particular the responsibility of all staff to report unaccounted staff absences".
Sir John continued: "Gareth Williams was a man of remarkable talents, talents which he devoted to public service. The work that Gareth undertook during his career both at Cheltenham and London made a real contribution to the security of this country and of its citizens. Gareth continues to be mourned by his friends and colleagues."
Members of Mr Williams’ family, in particular his mother, had been unable to sit through some of the more harrowing evidence. Yesterday, in a statement read out by their solicitor, Robyn Williams, they said, "To lose a son and brother in such circumstances as have been outlined during the course of this inquest only compounds the tragedy.
"Our grief is exacerbated by the failure of his employers at MI6 to take even the most basic inquiries as to his whereabouts and welfare, which any reasonable employer would have taken. We are also extremely disappointed at the reluctance and failure of MI6 to make available relevant information.
"We would like to ask Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe to look into and review how this investigation will proceed in light of the total inadequacies of the SO15 investigation into MI6 during the course of this inquiry."
Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sabire, in charge of the team investigating Mr Williams death, said” "I've always been satisfied a third party may have been involved in his death and the coroner has confirmed that in her finding today. "The inquest has raised several new lines of inquiry and the investigation will refocus and actively pursue all the evidence heard and all the new lines of inquiry. I urge anyone who knew Mr Williams or had contact with him to search their conscience and come forward with any information about what had happened.”
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SO15
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3 News (NZ) : Coroner: Spy Gareth Williams likely slain by mystery killer
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Coroner: Spy Gareth Williams likely slain by mystery killer
By Paisley Dodds | May 3, 2012
Even after a coroner's verdict, it remains a mystery: A naked spy found dead in a locked bag, lurid details of a kinky sex life and allegations that someone in Britain's spy agencies may have been involved in his death.
A British coroner has ruled that another person was likely involved in Gareth Williams' death - a finding that puts more pressure on police to uncover the cyberwarfare expert's killer and continue to investigate possibilities that include whether he could have died in a sex game gone awry or in a more sinister scenario that involved his counterterrorism work.
In Britain, coroners are asked to investigate unexplained deaths, and their findings can often carry weight as police investigations proceed.
Although Coroner Fiona Wilcox said it was unlikely that the death of Williams, 31, will ever be "satisfactorily explained," she said the spy was likely killed either by suffocation or poisoning in a "criminally meditated act". She also said it was possible that someone from one of Britain's spy agencies was involved.
Williams, described as an introverted math genius, worked for Britain's secret eavesdropping service GCHQ. But he was attached to the MI6 foreign spy agency when his remains were found in the bathtub at his London apartment on August 16, 2010, just a few days after returning from a trip to the United States.
Forensic experts found some £20,000 worth of luxury women's clothing, shoes and wigs in his apartment. Police also discovered that he had visited bondage and sadomasochism websites, including some related to claustrophilia - a desire for confinement in enclosed spaces.
William's landlord testified during the coroner's hearing that she once found him handcuffed to his bed. She said he had appeared embarrassed after asking for help.
Still, Wilcox said there was no immediate evidence of a sexual encounter gone wrong, of suicidal intent, or that Williams' death was linked to a supposed interest in bondage. She said, however, that tales about his sex life could have been fuelled in an attempt to "manipulate the evidence".
In the past, spy recruits were often cautioned that their sex lives could make them vulnerable to blackmail.
The case has frustrated Scotland Yard detectives who have been investigating the case for 21 months now and say that the secrecy surrounding Williams' job has thwarted their efforts.
"Obviously a lot of information has come out through the course of this inquest which we have not been party to," lead detective Jackie Sebire said.
But Wilcox also criticised the police detectives.
Time and resources were wasted, she said, when forensic teams investigating a DNA sample taken from Williams's hand later turned out to belong to one of the forensic scientists. She also questioned the handling of William's iPhone, which contained deleted images of him naked in a pair of boots.
Detective Superintendent Michael Broster, who was the police liason with MI6, said he had seized it from the spy's workplace and kept it until the next day when he gave it to another officer.
"I find this is either not what occurred ... or it demonstrates disregard for the rules governing continuity of evidence," Wilcox said.
Wilcox also criticised officers who interviewed Williams' colleagues without taking any formal statements.
"I find that this did affect the quality of evidence that was heard before this court," she said.
Still, the coroner said she had seen no evidence to indicate his death was linked to his work.
When the case emerged, some had speculated that he could have been the target of Russian criminal gangs or an al-Qaida extremist. Other media reports had said there had been a break-in at the property where he lived - a building sometimes used by MI6 to house its agents.
Wilcox said while there wasn't evidence to support a specific verdict of unlawful killing - which would need a high burden of proof - it was her opinion that the spy was probably unlawfully killed.
She said while it appeared unlikely, speculation that British intelligence agencies may have had a role in the death continued to be a "legitimate line of inquiry".
MI6 waited a week to investigate why Williams hadn't shown up for work - a delay that made it difficult for Williams' family to identify his badly decomposed body.
John Sawers, the head of MI6, said in a statement following the corner's verdict that he apologised "unreservedly" to the Williams family for the spy agency's failure.
During the coroner's hearing, MI6 accepted that Williams disliked the agency's boozy culture of post-work drinking and tedious bureaucracy, and had requested to return to his job at GCHQ.
One MI6 officer claimed that Williams hadn't been reported as missing because colleagues assumed he was preparing for his return to the southern England headquarters of the eavesdropping service.
Wilcox said it appeared unlikely that Williams could have climbed inside the duffel bag and locked it himself. Two different specialists attempted to recreate the feat without success. Williams was discovered in the foetal position inside the bag with two keys to the bag's padlock underneath his buttocks.
Pathologists told the inquest that poisoning or asphyxiation may have killed Williams, but said his cadaver was too badly decomposed to be certain.
Williams' family, who have been left distraught by parts of the inquest, did not speak outside court but offered a statement.
The family, from Wales, described Williams as a "special and adored son and brother" and said they "cannot describe the depth of the sorrow his absence leaves in our lives".
The police investigating is ongoing.
AP
By Paisley Dodds | May 3, 2012
Even after a coroner's verdict, it remains a mystery: A naked spy found dead in a locked bag, lurid details of a kinky sex life and allegations that someone in Britain's spy agencies may have been involved in his death.
A British coroner has ruled that another person was likely involved in Gareth Williams' death - a finding that puts more pressure on police to uncover the cyberwarfare expert's killer and continue to investigate possibilities that include whether he could have died in a sex game gone awry or in a more sinister scenario that involved his counterterrorism work.
In Britain, coroners are asked to investigate unexplained deaths, and their findings can often carry weight as police investigations proceed.
Although Coroner Fiona Wilcox said it was unlikely that the death of Williams, 31, will ever be "satisfactorily explained," she said the spy was likely killed either by suffocation or poisoning in a "criminally meditated act". She also said it was possible that someone from one of Britain's spy agencies was involved.
Williams, described as an introverted math genius, worked for Britain's secret eavesdropping service GCHQ. But he was attached to the MI6 foreign spy agency when his remains were found in the bathtub at his London apartment on August 16, 2010, just a few days after returning from a trip to the United States.
Forensic experts found some £20,000 worth of luxury women's clothing, shoes and wigs in his apartment. Police also discovered that he had visited bondage and sadomasochism websites, including some related to claustrophilia - a desire for confinement in enclosed spaces.
William's landlord testified during the coroner's hearing that she once found him handcuffed to his bed. She said he had appeared embarrassed after asking for help.
Still, Wilcox said there was no immediate evidence of a sexual encounter gone wrong, of suicidal intent, or that Williams' death was linked to a supposed interest in bondage. She said, however, that tales about his sex life could have been fuelled in an attempt to "manipulate the evidence".
In the past, spy recruits were often cautioned that their sex lives could make them vulnerable to blackmail.
The case has frustrated Scotland Yard detectives who have been investigating the case for 21 months now and say that the secrecy surrounding Williams' job has thwarted their efforts.
"Obviously a lot of information has come out through the course of this inquest which we have not been party to," lead detective Jackie Sebire said.
But Wilcox also criticised the police detectives.
Time and resources were wasted, she said, when forensic teams investigating a DNA sample taken from Williams's hand later turned out to belong to one of the forensic scientists. She also questioned the handling of William's iPhone, which contained deleted images of him naked in a pair of boots.
Detective Superintendent Michael Broster, who was the police liason with MI6, said he had seized it from the spy's workplace and kept it until the next day when he gave it to another officer.
"I find this is either not what occurred ... or it demonstrates disregard for the rules governing continuity of evidence," Wilcox said.
Wilcox also criticised officers who interviewed Williams' colleagues without taking any formal statements.
"I find that this did affect the quality of evidence that was heard before this court," she said.
Still, the coroner said she had seen no evidence to indicate his death was linked to his work.
When the case emerged, some had speculated that he could have been the target of Russian criminal gangs or an al-Qaida extremist. Other media reports had said there had been a break-in at the property where he lived - a building sometimes used by MI6 to house its agents.
Wilcox said while there wasn't evidence to support a specific verdict of unlawful killing - which would need a high burden of proof - it was her opinion that the spy was probably unlawfully killed.
She said while it appeared unlikely, speculation that British intelligence agencies may have had a role in the death continued to be a "legitimate line of inquiry".
MI6 waited a week to investigate why Williams hadn't shown up for work - a delay that made it difficult for Williams' family to identify his badly decomposed body.
John Sawers, the head of MI6, said in a statement following the corner's verdict that he apologised "unreservedly" to the Williams family for the spy agency's failure.
During the coroner's hearing, MI6 accepted that Williams disliked the agency's boozy culture of post-work drinking and tedious bureaucracy, and had requested to return to his job at GCHQ.
One MI6 officer claimed that Williams hadn't been reported as missing because colleagues assumed he was preparing for his return to the southern England headquarters of the eavesdropping service.
Wilcox said it appeared unlikely that Williams could have climbed inside the duffel bag and locked it himself. Two different specialists attempted to recreate the feat without success. Williams was discovered in the foetal position inside the bag with two keys to the bag's padlock underneath his buttocks.
Pathologists told the inquest that poisoning or asphyxiation may have killed Williams, but said his cadaver was too badly decomposed to be certain.
Williams' family, who have been left distraught by parts of the inquest, did not speak outside court but offered a statement.
The family, from Wales, described Williams as a "special and adored son and brother" and said they "cannot describe the depth of the sorrow his absence leaves in our lives".
The police investigating is ongoing.
AP
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poisoning,
shoes,
Sir John Sawers,
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Wales Online : Secret service members could come under scrutiny following MI6 spy death
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Secret service members could come under scrutiny following MI6 spy death
May 3, 2012
Members of the secret services are expected to come under scrutiny as detectives redouble their efforts to solve the mystery of spy Gareth Williams’s death.
MI6 came under fire as a coroner said she was sure a third party locked the code-breaker inside the red holdall in which his naked body was found in his bathtub.
Police strongly suspect a member of MI6 or GCHQ was in his flat the day he died and will take DNA samples from up to 50 of his colleagues, the Daily Mail reported.
Giving her verdict in the inquest into the 31-year-old’s death, 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.
But the 21-month investigation has yet to yield a culprit, with forensic experts still hoping for a breakthrough from DNA tests on a green towel discovered in his kitchen.
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.”
Mr Williams’s relatives later attacked failures by secret services and police after the coroner said “many agencies fell short” in their investigation of the death riddle.
Criticising the inquiry, she warned it was unlikely the mystery would “ever be satisfactorily explained”.
But she said: “The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated.
“I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully.”
The lack of hand and footprints in the bathroom was “significant”, she said, telling the court: “In relation to the prints found within the bathroom, in my view what was more significant was what was not found rather than what was found.”
It was “highly unlikely” Mr Williams died alone, and had he been “carrying out some kind of peculiar experiment, he wouldn’t care if he left any foot or fingerprints”, Westminster Coroner’s Court heard.
As the eight-day hearing ended, relatives spoke out for the first time about their grief being “exacerbated” by MI6’s “reluctance and failure” to assist the police inquiry.
In a statement read out by their solicitor, they said they were “extremely disappointed” at “total inadequacies” in the probe into the death of their son and brother, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ at the time.
Scotland Yard meanwhile vowed to explore new evidence that has come to light and Sir John Sawers, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, apologised “unreservedly” for delays in raising the alarm about the death.
Mr Williams, a fitness enthusiast originally from Anglesey, North Wales, was found in the bag in his flat in Pimlico, central London, on August 23 2010.
Pathologists said he would have suffocated within three minutes if he was alive when he got inside the 32-inch by 19-inch holdall.
The coroner agreed that Mr Williams was suffocated by carbon dioxide, possibly as an onset of a short-acting poison.
She dismissed speculation that Mr Williams died as a result of some kind of “auto-erotic activity”, also denying there was any evidence to suggest claustrophilia – the love of enclosed spaces – was of any interest to him.
But despite leaving open the possibility of secret service involvement, she said “there was no evidence to support” that he died at the hands of spies.
Several factors had hampered inquiries, she observed, including breakdowns in communication by her own coroner’s office, a DNA mix-up by forensics and the late submission of evidence by MI6 to police.
However, she said, “taking all these shortfalls together, I am satisfied that the evidence is reliable and that we do not have to adjourn at this point”.
Revelations that MI6 failed to raise the alarm about Mr Williams’s disappearance for more than a week prompted elaborate conspiracy theories about his job and private life.
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”.
May 3, 2012
Members of the secret services are expected to come under scrutiny as detectives redouble their efforts to solve the mystery of spy Gareth Williams’s death.
MI6 came under fire as a coroner said she was sure a third party locked the code-breaker inside the red holdall in which his naked body was found in his bathtub.
Police strongly suspect a member of MI6 or GCHQ was in his flat the day he died and will take DNA samples from up to 50 of his colleagues, the Daily Mail reported.
Giving her verdict in the inquest into the 31-year-old’s death, 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.
But the 21-month investigation has yet to yield a culprit, with forensic experts still hoping for a breakthrough from DNA tests on a green towel discovered in his kitchen.
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.”
Mr Williams’s relatives later attacked failures by secret services and police after the coroner said “many agencies fell short” in their investigation of the death riddle.
Criticising the inquiry, she warned it was unlikely the mystery would “ever be satisfactorily explained”.
But she said: “The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated.
“I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully.”
The lack of hand and footprints in the bathroom was “significant”, she said, telling the court: “In relation to the prints found within the bathroom, in my view what was more significant was what was not found rather than what was found.”
It was “highly unlikely” Mr Williams died alone, and had he been “carrying out some kind of peculiar experiment, he wouldn’t care if he left any foot or fingerprints”, Westminster Coroner’s Court heard.
As the eight-day hearing ended, relatives spoke out for the first time about their grief being “exacerbated” by MI6’s “reluctance and failure” to assist the police inquiry.
In a statement read out by their solicitor, they said they were “extremely disappointed” at “total inadequacies” in the probe into the death of their son and brother, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ at the time.
Scotland Yard meanwhile vowed to explore new evidence that has come to light and Sir John Sawers, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, apologised “unreservedly” for delays in raising the alarm about the death.
Mr Williams, a fitness enthusiast originally from Anglesey, North Wales, was found in the bag in his flat in Pimlico, central London, on August 23 2010.
Pathologists said he would have suffocated within three minutes if he was alive when he got inside the 32-inch by 19-inch holdall.
The coroner agreed that Mr Williams was suffocated by carbon dioxide, possibly as an onset of a short-acting poison.
She dismissed speculation that Mr Williams died as a result of some kind of “auto-erotic activity”, also denying there was any evidence to suggest claustrophilia – the love of enclosed spaces – was of any interest to him.
But despite leaving open the possibility of secret service involvement, she said “there was no evidence to support” that he died at the hands of spies.
Several factors had hampered inquiries, she observed, including breakdowns in communication by her own coroner’s office, a DNA mix-up by forensics and the late submission of evidence by MI6 to police.
However, she said, “taking all these shortfalls together, I am satisfied that the evidence is reliable and that we do not have to adjourn at this point”.
Revelations that MI6 failed to raise the alarm about Mr Williams’s disappearance for more than a week prompted elaborate conspiracy theories about his job and private life.
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”.
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Daily Mail : 50 agents face DNA tests over spy-in-the-bag killing as coroner brands death 'unlawful' and puts MI6 in the frame
Thursday, May 03, 2012
50 agents face DNA tests over spy-in-the-bag killing as coroner brands death 'unlawful' and puts MI6 in the frame
* 15 colleagues of Gareth Williams have already given DNA evidence
* Coroner: 'It is unlikely the spy's death will ever be satisfactorily explained'
* Dr Fiona Wilcox says lack of compelling evidence removes possibility of unlawful killing verdict but says it is probable his death was 'illegal'
* 'It would appear that many agencies fell short' during the investigation
* Coroner: British Secret Service's involvement 'still a legitimate line of inquiry'
* MI6 chief apologises 'unreservedly' to Mr Williams' family over the way the police inquiry was hampered by his colleagues
* Family pay emotional tribute to their 'special and adored son and brother' and blast MI6's 'reluctance and failure' in helping detectives
By Stephen Wright and Chris Greenwood | May 3, 2012
Police are taking DNA samples from up to 50 colleagues of body-in-the-bag spy Gareth Williams.
Officers strongly suspect a member of the security services, working for either MI6 or GCHQ, was in the 31-year-old's flat on the night he died.
Fifteen of his colleagues have already given their DNA to police and officers plan to take swabs from dozens more.
Investigators hope detailed analysis of a scruffy green hand-towel recovered from a shelf in his kitchen could soon result in a forensic breakthrough.
Details of the extraordinary DNA sweep emerged as a coroner ruled that Mr Williams, whose naked body was found in a locked red North Face bag in the bath of his central London apartment, was probably 'unlawfully killed'.
In a dramatic narrative verdict, Dr Fiona Wilcox told Westminster coroner's court it was a 'legitimate line of inquiry' that the codebreaker was killed by a colleague, as he would only have let someone he trusted into his home.
'The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated,' she said. 'I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities Gareth was killed unlawfully.'
Dr Wilcox said serious questions remain over an iPhone of Mr Williams's that was mysteriously wiped of all data just hours before he died in August 2010.
She added that the forgetfulness of some employees at MI6, where Mr Williams had been on secondment from GCHQ, the Government's listening post, 'stretched probability'.
She refused to rule out that a colleague in the shadowy world of intelligence was involved.
Yesterday Mr Williams's family accused MI6 of withholding vital clues and failing to make 'basic inquiries' into his whereabouts until a week after his disappearance.
And they called on the head of Scotland Yard, Bernard Hogan-Howe, to review the 21-month investigation personally.
Mr Williams's sister Ceri and their parents Ian and Ellen attacked the 'total inadequacies' of the inquiry.
In a statement released by their lawyer, they said: 'Our grief is exacerbated by the failure of his employers at MI6 to make even the most basic inquiries as to his whereabouts and welfare that any reasonable employer would have taken.
'We are also extremely disappointed over the reluctance and failure of MI6 to make available relevant information.'
Last night Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, apologised 'unreservedly' for the failure of Mr Williams's colleagues to raise the alarm promptly, which meant the body was left to decompose for a week in the sweltering top-floor flat in Pimlico.
Mr Williams was a maths prodigy who graduated with first-class honours in computer science aged 17 and completed a PhD four years later. As well as being a cycling fanatic and successful fell runner, he had a wide-ranging passion for the arts and high-end fashion.
He also hoarded a £20,000 collection of designer women's clothing, browsed fetish websites and filmed himself dancing naked except for a pair of cowboy boots.
But in a painstaking two-hour examination of the evidence, Dr Wilcox rejected theories that the reclusive prodigy's eccentric private life had any link to his death.
She also said he probably did not die in a solo sex game that went catastrophically wrong, because he was not a risk-taker.
Dr Wilcox said she was 'sure that a third party placed the bag into the bath and on the balance of probabilities locked the bag'.
She told Mr Williams's family that she hoped the inquest would give them some comfort, adding that 'it would appear that many agencies fell short' during the investigation into his death, leaving 'most of the fundamental questions unanswered'.
Dr Wilcox concluded Mr Williams was alive when he got into the North Face holdall where his body was found.
She said she was certain someone else put it in the bath of his windowless ensuite bathroom, probably to contain bodily fluids, before closing the door behind them.
The coroner said the spy would have died quickly, either from hypercapnia, the fatal accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood, or from a mystery poison.
A range of poisons, including cyanide, insulin, chloroform and amyl nitrate could not be detected if they were used because of the advanced state of decomposition.
Detectives were last night already preparing to interview and take DNA samples from dozens of staff at MI6's London headquarters and GCHQ in Cheltenham.
Officers said human traces have been found on the hand towel recovered from Mr Williams's kitchen and the 'very promising' results of highly sensitive DNA testing could be ready within weeks.
After the inquest, Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire said there were several 'new lines of inquiry'.
She said: 'It is highly likely that a third party was involved in Gareth's death and I urge anyone who had contact with him to search their conscience and come forward.'
Last night Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt announced an urgent review of the new evidence and police blunders as a result of the inquest.
* 15 colleagues of Gareth Williams have already given DNA evidence
* Coroner: 'It is unlikely the spy's death will ever be satisfactorily explained'
* Dr Fiona Wilcox says lack of compelling evidence removes possibility of unlawful killing verdict but says it is probable his death was 'illegal'
* 'It would appear that many agencies fell short' during the investigation
* Coroner: British Secret Service's involvement 'still a legitimate line of inquiry'
* MI6 chief apologises 'unreservedly' to Mr Williams' family over the way the police inquiry was hampered by his colleagues
* Family pay emotional tribute to their 'special and adored son and brother' and blast MI6's 'reluctance and failure' in helping detectives
By Stephen Wright and Chris Greenwood | May 3, 2012
Police are taking DNA samples from up to 50 colleagues of body-in-the-bag spy Gareth Williams.
Officers strongly suspect a member of the security services, working for either MI6 or GCHQ, was in the 31-year-old's flat on the night he died.
Fifteen of his colleagues have already given their DNA to police and officers plan to take swabs from dozens more.
Investigators hope detailed analysis of a scruffy green hand-towel recovered from a shelf in his kitchen could soon result in a forensic breakthrough.
Details of the extraordinary DNA sweep emerged as a coroner ruled that Mr Williams, whose naked body was found in a locked red North Face bag in the bath of his central London apartment, was probably 'unlawfully killed'.
In a dramatic narrative verdict, Dr Fiona Wilcox told Westminster coroner's court it was a 'legitimate line of inquiry' that the codebreaker was killed by a colleague, as he would only have let someone he trusted into his home.
'The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated,' she said. 'I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities Gareth was killed unlawfully.'
Dr Wilcox said serious questions remain over an iPhone of Mr Williams's that was mysteriously wiped of all data just hours before he died in August 2010.
She added that the forgetfulness of some employees at MI6, where Mr Williams had been on secondment from GCHQ, the Government's listening post, 'stretched probability'.
She refused to rule out that a colleague in the shadowy world of intelligence was involved.
Yesterday Mr Williams's family accused MI6 of withholding vital clues and failing to make 'basic inquiries' into his whereabouts until a week after his disappearance.
And they called on the head of Scotland Yard, Bernard Hogan-Howe, to review the 21-month investigation personally.
Mr Williams's sister Ceri and their parents Ian and Ellen attacked the 'total inadequacies' of the inquiry.
In a statement released by their lawyer, they said: 'Our grief is exacerbated by the failure of his employers at MI6 to make even the most basic inquiries as to his whereabouts and welfare that any reasonable employer would have taken.
'We are also extremely disappointed over the reluctance and failure of MI6 to make available relevant information.'
Last night Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, apologised 'unreservedly' for the failure of Mr Williams's colleagues to raise the alarm promptly, which meant the body was left to decompose for a week in the sweltering top-floor flat in Pimlico.
Mr Williams was a maths prodigy who graduated with first-class honours in computer science aged 17 and completed a PhD four years later. As well as being a cycling fanatic and successful fell runner, he had a wide-ranging passion for the arts and high-end fashion.
He also hoarded a £20,000 collection of designer women's clothing, browsed fetish websites and filmed himself dancing naked except for a pair of cowboy boots.
But in a painstaking two-hour examination of the evidence, Dr Wilcox rejected theories that the reclusive prodigy's eccentric private life had any link to his death.
She also said he probably did not die in a solo sex game that went catastrophically wrong, because he was not a risk-taker.
Dr Wilcox said she was 'sure that a third party placed the bag into the bath and on the balance of probabilities locked the bag'.
She told Mr Williams's family that she hoped the inquest would give them some comfort, adding that 'it would appear that many agencies fell short' during the investigation into his death, leaving 'most of the fundamental questions unanswered'.
Dr Wilcox concluded Mr Williams was alive when he got into the North Face holdall where his body was found.
She said she was certain someone else put it in the bath of his windowless ensuite bathroom, probably to contain bodily fluids, before closing the door behind them.
The coroner said the spy would have died quickly, either from hypercapnia, the fatal accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood, or from a mystery poison.
A range of poisons, including cyanide, insulin, chloroform and amyl nitrate could not be detected if they were used because of the advanced state of decomposition.
Detectives were last night already preparing to interview and take DNA samples from dozens of staff at MI6's London headquarters and GCHQ in Cheltenham.
Officers said human traces have been found on the hand towel recovered from Mr Williams's kitchen and the 'very promising' results of highly sensitive DNA testing could be ready within weeks.
After the inquest, Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire said there were several 'new lines of inquiry'.
She said: 'It is highly likely that a third party was involved in Gareth's death and I urge anyone who had contact with him to search their conscience and come forward.'
Last night Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt announced an urgent review of the new evidence and police blunders as a result of the inquest.
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Guardian : Gareth Williams case should make us all uneasy
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Gareth Williams case should make us all uneasy
Michael White | May 3, 2012
The MI6 officer's unexplained death has accidentally shone a light on things security folk would love to have covered up
Are MI6 and its domestic counterpart, MI5, entitled to keep some secrets? Of course they are. Why, only this week when Alex Healey and I were out filming Boris Johnson for the Guardian we patriotically avoided causing the spooks embarrassment. But when an inquest exposes MI6's shoddy behaviour over the death of codebreaker Gareth Williams, Ken Clarke can surely kiss goodbye to his hopes of secret court hearings for intelligence-sensitive evidence.
Why? Because the bizarre, still unexplained death of the mathematical wizard and fitness fanatic has accidentally shone a light on what can only be interpreted as incompetence or callousness by his employers – I rule out more sinister explanations, tempting though they always are – which the security folk would love to have covered up.
As Caroline Davies and Sandra Laville set out in Thursday's paper – most papers wisely give the case a lot of space – they had already covered up enough to make the coroner, Fiona Wilcox, consider suspending her inquest.
This happened after she discovered only this week that MI6 had withheld from police investigators the existence of nine memory sticks and another holdall at Williams's MI6 HQ office on the south bank of the Thames. It wasn't the only problem.
As usual the intelligence community pleaded "sensitive information" on the memory sticks. This seems to have been enough for counter-terrorism officers from the Met's SO15 branch, who have clearance to visit MI6 HQ and also kept it from the copper actually investigating what may yet turn out to be murder (rather than a sex game that went wrong?). But what about the other holdall, just like the one the 5ft 8ins and 60kg Williams was found locked inside?
Taken together with the discovery that the flat was unusually clean of prints and other human detritus – wiped by a third party? – the whole incident is baffling. What's more, you may recall, it took Williams's sister, not his workmates, to call the alarm – even though he hadn't been in for a week.
The spy writer Nigel West suggests in an article that they may have assumed he was off on some secret mission, that no one would want to show themselves out of the loop by asking where Gareth was.
Surely some primitive form of line management must exist to cover the possibility that the seriously talented Welshman from GCQH in Cheltenham might be kidnapped by Russians or even little green Martians?
Not our problem, though we do pay for ever-larger budgets to keep us all safe from threats which are – some of them – very real. But the affair serves to remind us all – as Richard Norton-Taylor writes here – that the security services can act like a self-interested producer lobby as much as Bob Crow at the RMT union or Bob Diamond at Barclays Bank.
The scope for wrapping themselves in national security and acting outside the law without being held to account is thus very considerable. So when the justice secretary produces a green paper suggesting that US co-operation over intelligence material is at risk if sensitive stuff like that made public in the Binyam Mohamed case is revealed in future cases, we are entitled to be sceptical.
So, incidentally, are some ex-CIA types reported here.
All government departments have their own agendas – the permanent government agenda immortalised by Yes Minister's Sir Humphrey – and MI5/MI6 are no different.
Chances are they sold this one to a jittery coalition, much as they did to New Labour. Yet Clarke of all people is an old soldier, precisely the sort of no-nonsense politician not to be hoodwinked. The joint Lords/Commons intelligence and security committee (ISC) should also be standing up for the public interest – but doesn't seem to be doing so in this instance.
Labour's Kim Howells, who used to chair the ISC, was on Channel 4 News on Wednesday night expressing puzzlement and dismay about the fate of his fellow Welshman.
I spoke to another ex-ISC MP a few minutes ago, who said the same: "What on earth are the security services up to? Don't they realise we live in the 21st century, when greater openness is essential?"
It's not that we need to or should be told everything, of course not. But judges and coroners, sometimes juries and certainly investigating police officers from the Met need to be told what's going on. Why was the Met so deferential to MI6 and is only now taking DNA swabs from Gareth Williams's immediate colleagues?
It's not as if they're on Rupert Murdoch's payroll. And they certainly weren't so deferential to Tony Blair over those loans-for-honours allegations, when no one died except in a political sense.
How did Alex Healey and I do our bit for MI6, I hear you ask? Well, we were on a suburban train with Boris Johnson, travelling from Wandsworth to Waterloo when I spotted the MI6 HQ looming out of the mist. Alex filmed it and I said to camera: "Let's wait to see if we can spot a few spooks getting out at Vauxhall station."
Do you know, right on cue, a well-dressed, faintly smart sort of chap in a beige overcoat with a brown collar, got out at Vauxhall, looking as if he was straight from George Smiley's version of central casting. "Switch that camera off, Alex," I said. "We must protect this man."
Let's hope he'd do the same for us if we went missing for a week.
Michael White | May 3, 2012
The MI6 officer's unexplained death has accidentally shone a light on things security folk would love to have covered up
Are MI6 and its domestic counterpart, MI5, entitled to keep some secrets? Of course they are. Why, only this week when Alex Healey and I were out filming Boris Johnson for the Guardian we patriotically avoided causing the spooks embarrassment. But when an inquest exposes MI6's shoddy behaviour over the death of codebreaker Gareth Williams, Ken Clarke can surely kiss goodbye to his hopes of secret court hearings for intelligence-sensitive evidence.
Why? Because the bizarre, still unexplained death of the mathematical wizard and fitness fanatic has accidentally shone a light on what can only be interpreted as incompetence or callousness by his employers – I rule out more sinister explanations, tempting though they always are – which the security folk would love to have covered up.
As Caroline Davies and Sandra Laville set out in Thursday's paper – most papers wisely give the case a lot of space – they had already covered up enough to make the coroner, Fiona Wilcox, consider suspending her inquest.
This happened after she discovered only this week that MI6 had withheld from police investigators the existence of nine memory sticks and another holdall at Williams's MI6 HQ office on the south bank of the Thames. It wasn't the only problem.
As usual the intelligence community pleaded "sensitive information" on the memory sticks. This seems to have been enough for counter-terrorism officers from the Met's SO15 branch, who have clearance to visit MI6 HQ and also kept it from the copper actually investigating what may yet turn out to be murder (rather than a sex game that went wrong?). But what about the other holdall, just like the one the 5ft 8ins and 60kg Williams was found locked inside?
Taken together with the discovery that the flat was unusually clean of prints and other human detritus – wiped by a third party? – the whole incident is baffling. What's more, you may recall, it took Williams's sister, not his workmates, to call the alarm – even though he hadn't been in for a week.
The spy writer Nigel West suggests in an article that they may have assumed he was off on some secret mission, that no one would want to show themselves out of the loop by asking where Gareth was.
Surely some primitive form of line management must exist to cover the possibility that the seriously talented Welshman from GCQH in Cheltenham might be kidnapped by Russians or even little green Martians?
Not our problem, though we do pay for ever-larger budgets to keep us all safe from threats which are – some of them – very real. But the affair serves to remind us all – as Richard Norton-Taylor writes here – that the security services can act like a self-interested producer lobby as much as Bob Crow at the RMT union or Bob Diamond at Barclays Bank.
The scope for wrapping themselves in national security and acting outside the law without being held to account is thus very considerable. So when the justice secretary produces a green paper suggesting that US co-operation over intelligence material is at risk if sensitive stuff like that made public in the Binyam Mohamed case is revealed in future cases, we are entitled to be sceptical.
So, incidentally, are some ex-CIA types reported here.
All government departments have their own agendas – the permanent government agenda immortalised by Yes Minister's Sir Humphrey – and MI5/MI6 are no different.
Chances are they sold this one to a jittery coalition, much as they did to New Labour. Yet Clarke of all people is an old soldier, precisely the sort of no-nonsense politician not to be hoodwinked. The joint Lords/Commons intelligence and security committee (ISC) should also be standing up for the public interest – but doesn't seem to be doing so in this instance.
Labour's Kim Howells, who used to chair the ISC, was on Channel 4 News on Wednesday night expressing puzzlement and dismay about the fate of his fellow Welshman.
I spoke to another ex-ISC MP a few minutes ago, who said the same: "What on earth are the security services up to? Don't they realise we live in the 21st century, when greater openness is essential?"
It's not that we need to or should be told everything, of course not. But judges and coroners, sometimes juries and certainly investigating police officers from the Met need to be told what's going on. Why was the Met so deferential to MI6 and is only now taking DNA swabs from Gareth Williams's immediate colleagues?
It's not as if they're on Rupert Murdoch's payroll. And they certainly weren't so deferential to Tony Blair over those loans-for-honours allegations, when no one died except in a political sense.
How did Alex Healey and I do our bit for MI6, I hear you ask? Well, we were on a suburban train with Boris Johnson, travelling from Wandsworth to Waterloo when I spotted the MI6 HQ looming out of the mist. Alex filmed it and I said to camera: "Let's wait to see if we can spot a few spooks getting out at Vauxhall station."
Do you know, right on cue, a well-dressed, faintly smart sort of chap in a beige overcoat with a brown collar, got out at Vauxhall, looking as if he was straight from George Smiley's version of central casting. "Switch that camera off, Alex," I said. "We must protect this man."
Let's hope he'd do the same for us if we went missing for a week.
Filed under
Fiona Wilcox,
holdall,
Ken Clarke,
Kim Howells,
memory sticks,
Nigel West
by Winter Patriot
on Thursday, May 03, 2012 |
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Scotsman : Gareth Williams inquest: The seven unanswered questions
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Gareth Williams inquest: The seven unanswered questions
May 3, 2012
Scotland Yard has vowed to pursue all new evidence which has emerged. But a source close to the inquiry said officers were still “some way off a breakthrough”.
Here is how the inquest has tried but failed to solve the riddle.
Q: Were secret agents specialising in the “dark arts” responsible for Mr Williams’s death in his Pimlico home?
A: Detectives have said from the start that third-party involvement was likely.
The fact there were no fingerprints at all in the flat suggested it had been professionally cleaned up. There were also nine computer memory sticks and a bag withheld by MI6.
Det Supt Michael Broster said: “I am not saying that a member of SIS [MI6] is not involved. I don’t know.”
Q: How was Williams able to get inside a holdall in his bathtub before padlocking himself in?
A: Bag expert Peter Faulding said even world-famous escapologist Harry Houdini would have struggled to squeeze himself in.
Mr Faulding tried and failed to carry out the task more than 300 times. But William MacKay, who made more than 100 attempts with a yoga-practising assistant, said: “I would not like to say that it could not be done.”
Q: Could a third party have been present when he died, despite no trace of DNA or fingerprints?
A: Forensic experts said it was entirely possible that someone could break in and kill Mr Williams without leaving any evidence.
Det Insp Sebire says she remains convinced someone was there. Forensic expert Ros Hammond said there were hopes of a breakthrough “within a matter of weeks” from DNA tests on a towel discovered in his kitchen.
Q: Why was there no sign of a struggle on his body? Could he have been drugged?
A: Poisoning and asphyxiation are the “foremost contenders” in causing Mr Williams’ death, pathologists said. But experts believe there would have been signs of damage to his fingers and hands if he had struggled to get out of the bag within the three minutes it would have taken to suffocate.
The fact that Mr Williams was dead for up to ten days before his post-mortem examination meant many poisons and/or bruise marks could have disappeared.
Q: Why did it take colleagues at MI6 more than a week to realise he was missing?
A: MI6 offered a range of excuses including his recent return from a trip to Las Vegas, delays on the trains and his imminent return to GCHQ.
Colleagues apologised to the family for the potential damage the mistakes did to the police inquiry.
Q: Has information been withheld because it could jeopardise secret security operations?
A: Family lawyer Anthony O’Toole was blocked on several occasions from asking detectives and MI6 about the use of an apparently unvetted estate agent to let Mr Williams’s flat. Relatives suspect the decision may have compromised the safety of the property. In addition, more than ten employees linked to GCHQ and MI6 were allowed to give evidence behind a screen to protect their identities.
Q: Could Mr Williams’s private life have had any significance in his death?
A: He had shown an interest in escapology and self-bondage. He once tied himself to his bed and had to be cut free.
But Det Con Simon Warren said Williams’s interest in bondage footage on his computer was “an isolated [incident] among other data”.
May 3, 2012
Scotland Yard has vowed to pursue all new evidence which has emerged. But a source close to the inquiry said officers were still “some way off a breakthrough”.
Here is how the inquest has tried but failed to solve the riddle.
Q: Were secret agents specialising in the “dark arts” responsible for Mr Williams’s death in his Pimlico home?
A: Detectives have said from the start that third-party involvement was likely.
The fact there were no fingerprints at all in the flat suggested it had been professionally cleaned up. There were also nine computer memory sticks and a bag withheld by MI6.
Det Supt Michael Broster said: “I am not saying that a member of SIS [MI6] is not involved. I don’t know.”
Q: How was Williams able to get inside a holdall in his bathtub before padlocking himself in?
A: Bag expert Peter Faulding said even world-famous escapologist Harry Houdini would have struggled to squeeze himself in.
Mr Faulding tried and failed to carry out the task more than 300 times. But William MacKay, who made more than 100 attempts with a yoga-practising assistant, said: “I would not like to say that it could not be done.”
Q: Could a third party have been present when he died, despite no trace of DNA or fingerprints?
A: Forensic experts said it was entirely possible that someone could break in and kill Mr Williams without leaving any evidence.
Det Insp Sebire says she remains convinced someone was there. Forensic expert Ros Hammond said there were hopes of a breakthrough “within a matter of weeks” from DNA tests on a towel discovered in his kitchen.
Q: Why was there no sign of a struggle on his body? Could he have been drugged?
A: Poisoning and asphyxiation are the “foremost contenders” in causing Mr Williams’ death, pathologists said. But experts believe there would have been signs of damage to his fingers and hands if he had struggled to get out of the bag within the three minutes it would have taken to suffocate.
The fact that Mr Williams was dead for up to ten days before his post-mortem examination meant many poisons and/or bruise marks could have disappeared.
Q: Why did it take colleagues at MI6 more than a week to realise he was missing?
A: MI6 offered a range of excuses including his recent return from a trip to Las Vegas, delays on the trains and his imminent return to GCHQ.
Colleagues apologised to the family for the potential damage the mistakes did to the police inquiry.
Q: Has information been withheld because it could jeopardise secret security operations?
A: Family lawyer Anthony O’Toole was blocked on several occasions from asking detectives and MI6 about the use of an apparently unvetted estate agent to let Mr Williams’s flat. Relatives suspect the decision may have compromised the safety of the property. In addition, more than ten employees linked to GCHQ and MI6 were allowed to give evidence behind a screen to protect their identities.
Q: Could Mr Williams’s private life have had any significance in his death?
A: He had shown an interest in escapology and self-bondage. He once tied himself to his bed and had to be cut free.
But Det Con Simon Warren said Williams’s interest in bondage footage on his computer was “an isolated [incident] among other data”.
Filed under
Anthony O'Toole,
asphyxiation,
dark arts,
DNA,
Jackie Sebire,
Michael Broster,
Peter Faulding,
poisoning,
Ros Hammond,
Simon Warren,
towel
by Winter Patriot
on Thursday, May 03, 2012 |
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Scotsman : Gareth Williams inquest: Spies are far cry from the world of James Bond
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Gareth Williams inquest: Spies are far cry from the world of James Bond
May 3, 2012
THE inquest provided a rare insight into the highly secretive world of Britain’s national security agencies.
But the picture of life working for government intelligence painted at the hearing was a far cry from the glamorous and dangerous world of MI6’s most famous fictional employee, James Bond.
It was bureaucracy and office politics rather than a succession of beautiful women, car chases and lucky escapes from certain death that made Mr Williams want to leave the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), as MI6 is known.
His line manager said he decided to quit because he was getting bogged down in the red tape of “process risk mitigation”. The SIS’s headquarters are in Vauxhall, south London, which is also home to one of London’s liveliest gay scenes.
But his boss – given the codename “SIS F” – indicated that what the maths prodigy got up to in his private life would not necessarily have stopped him carrying out his top-secret work.
She said: “There’s no set template as to what [an employee’s] lifestyle should be. Individuals have lifestyles and sexual choices which are perfectly legitimate. Our concern in the vetting process is to identify whether anything in the individual’s background, lifestyle, creates a risk for him.”
The inquest also undermined the image of MI6 as an ultra-slick agency able to locate anyone anywhere in the world within minutes. Mr Williams failed to turn up for a meeting at work at 3pm on August 16, 2010, but the SIS did not report him missing to police until 23 August.
SIS F blamed the week-long delay in alerting Scotland Yard on a “breakdown in communication”.
It is hard to imagine such an error getting past Miss Moneypenny, the super-efficient secretary to 007’s boss, M.
May 3, 2012
THE inquest provided a rare insight into the highly secretive world of Britain’s national security agencies.
But the picture of life working for government intelligence painted at the hearing was a far cry from the glamorous and dangerous world of MI6’s most famous fictional employee, James Bond.
It was bureaucracy and office politics rather than a succession of beautiful women, car chases and lucky escapes from certain death that made Mr Williams want to leave the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), as MI6 is known.
His line manager said he decided to quit because he was getting bogged down in the red tape of “process risk mitigation”. The SIS’s headquarters are in Vauxhall, south London, which is also home to one of London’s liveliest gay scenes.
But his boss – given the codename “SIS F” – indicated that what the maths prodigy got up to in his private life would not necessarily have stopped him carrying out his top-secret work.
She said: “There’s no set template as to what [an employee’s] lifestyle should be. Individuals have lifestyles and sexual choices which are perfectly legitimate. Our concern in the vetting process is to identify whether anything in the individual’s background, lifestyle, creates a risk for him.”
The inquest also undermined the image of MI6 as an ultra-slick agency able to locate anyone anywhere in the world within minutes. Mr Williams failed to turn up for a meeting at work at 3pm on August 16, 2010, but the SIS did not report him missing to police until 23 August.
SIS F blamed the week-long delay in alerting Scotland Yard on a “breakdown in communication”.
It is hard to imagine such an error getting past Miss Moneypenny, the super-efficient secretary to 007’s boss, M.
Filed under
James Bond,
Scotsman,
SIS F
by Winter Patriot
on Thursday, May 03, 2012 |
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Telegraph : Police to take DNA samples from MI6 spy's colleagues as coroner says death was probably a crime
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Police to take DNA samples from MI6 spy's colleagues as coroner says death was probably a crime
DNA samples from up to 50 colleagues of Gareth Williams, the MI6 spy found dead in padlocked holdall, are being taken by police after a coroner concluded he was probably "unlawfully killed".
By Tom Whitehead and Martin Evans | May 3, 2012
• Police to take DNA samples from up to 50 of spy's colleagues
• Gareth Williams was probably unlawfully killed - coroner
• 'Criminally mediated' - third party locked bag and placed in bath
• Spy probably died of poison or carbon dioxide inside bag
• Clothes did not fit codebreaker and probably bought as gifts
• Little evidence death due to bondage games
• Family calls on Met chief to review the case and SO15 'failings'
• MI6 chief Sawers apologises for delay in raising alarm
Officers suspect a member of the secret services was in the 31-year-old codebreaker's flat when he died and have already taken DNA swabs from 15 of his colleagues.
Investigators said that a green hand towel recovered from a shelf in Mr Wiliiams's kitchen could provide a breakthrough in the unsolved case after human traces were found on it.
The development came as coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox concluded that Mr Williams’s death most likely involved a third party and he was either poisoned or suffocated.
She said the possibility that a member of the intelligence services was involved in the maths prodigy’s death remained a “legitimate line of inquiry” for police.
The head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, apologised to Mr Williams’s family for failing to report him missing for a week.
In a statement, family members said the delay had “exacerbated” their grief. They also criticised the intelligence service for its “failure and reluctance” to make information available.
The Metropolitan Police announced an urgent review of the case after concerns were raised over how some evidence was handled by MI6 and counter-terrorism officers during the two-year investigation.
Martin Hewitt, a deputy assistant commissioner at the Met, said the force was still investigating weak traces of DNA of at least two other people found in the flat in an attempt to identify a suspect.
Tests on whether there is a DNA sample on a towel found in Mr Williams’s kitchen could also be concluded within weeks.
There is also an investigation into whether a telephone that had been reset shortly before Mr Williams died could have held any clues. The coroner wondered whether it may have contained evidence of an arrangement to meet someone.
The naked, decomposing body of Mr Williams, a codebreaker on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, the signals intelligence agency, was found in a padlocked holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, London, in August 2010.
Despite an intensive police investigation, no one has been arrested and the circumstances surrounding his death have remained a mystery.
At the end of an eight-day inquest, Dr Wilcox concluded that a third party was most likely involved, adding: “The cause of death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated. I am therefore satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully.”
Recording a narrative verdict at Westminster coroner’s court, she said that Mr Williams was probably alive when he entered the bag and died either from an “unknown poison” or was overcome by carbon dioxide in the tight space.
She criticised the way MI6 and Det Supt Michael Broster, of the Met’s counter-terrorism unit, had handled aspects of the case.
Det Supt Broster acted as a link between the intelligence service and the Met team investigating the death, headed by Det Chief Insp Jackie Sebire.
It emerged this week that nine memory sticks potentially belonging to Mr Williams and a sports bag similar to the one in which he was found were discovered at MI6 but never disclosed to DCI Sebire.
There were also concerns over what precautions were taken to ensure his belongings were secured at work following his death.
An MI6 spokesman added: “We fully cooperated with the police and will continue to do so during the ongoing investigation. We gave all the evidence to the police when they wanted it; at no time did we withhold any evidence.”
Detectives were last night preparing to interview and take DNA samples from staff at MI6's London headquarters and GCHQ in Cheltenham.
Police said they hoped the hand towel found in Mr Williams's flat would yield "very promising" results when it undergoes sensitive DNA testing in the coming weeks.
After the inquest, Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire said there were several new lines of inquiry.
She said: "It is highly likely that a third party was involved in Gareth's death and I urge anyone who had contact with him to search their conscience and come forward."
DNA samples from up to 50 colleagues of Gareth Williams, the MI6 spy found dead in padlocked holdall, are being taken by police after a coroner concluded he was probably "unlawfully killed".
By Tom Whitehead and Martin Evans | May 3, 2012
• Police to take DNA samples from up to 50 of spy's colleagues
• Gareth Williams was probably unlawfully killed - coroner
• 'Criminally mediated' - third party locked bag and placed in bath
• Spy probably died of poison or carbon dioxide inside bag
• Clothes did not fit codebreaker and probably bought as gifts
• Little evidence death due to bondage games
• Family calls on Met chief to review the case and SO15 'failings'
• MI6 chief Sawers apologises for delay in raising alarm
Officers suspect a member of the secret services was in the 31-year-old codebreaker's flat when he died and have already taken DNA swabs from 15 of his colleagues.
Investigators said that a green hand towel recovered from a shelf in Mr Wiliiams's kitchen could provide a breakthrough in the unsolved case after human traces were found on it.
The development came as coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox concluded that Mr Williams’s death most likely involved a third party and he was either poisoned or suffocated.
She said the possibility that a member of the intelligence services was involved in the maths prodigy’s death remained a “legitimate line of inquiry” for police.
The head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, apologised to Mr Williams’s family for failing to report him missing for a week.
In a statement, family members said the delay had “exacerbated” their grief. They also criticised the intelligence service for its “failure and reluctance” to make information available.
The Metropolitan Police announced an urgent review of the case after concerns were raised over how some evidence was handled by MI6 and counter-terrorism officers during the two-year investigation.
Martin Hewitt, a deputy assistant commissioner at the Met, said the force was still investigating weak traces of DNA of at least two other people found in the flat in an attempt to identify a suspect.
Tests on whether there is a DNA sample on a towel found in Mr Williams’s kitchen could also be concluded within weeks.
There is also an investigation into whether a telephone that had been reset shortly before Mr Williams died could have held any clues. The coroner wondered whether it may have contained evidence of an arrangement to meet someone.
The naked, decomposing body of Mr Williams, a codebreaker on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, the signals intelligence agency, was found in a padlocked holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, London, in August 2010.
Despite an intensive police investigation, no one has been arrested and the circumstances surrounding his death have remained a mystery.
At the end of an eight-day inquest, Dr Wilcox concluded that a third party was most likely involved, adding: “The cause of death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated. I am therefore satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully.”
Recording a narrative verdict at Westminster coroner’s court, she said that Mr Williams was probably alive when he entered the bag and died either from an “unknown poison” or was overcome by carbon dioxide in the tight space.
She criticised the way MI6 and Det Supt Michael Broster, of the Met’s counter-terrorism unit, had handled aspects of the case.
Det Supt Broster acted as a link between the intelligence service and the Met team investigating the death, headed by Det Chief Insp Jackie Sebire.
It emerged this week that nine memory sticks potentially belonging to Mr Williams and a sports bag similar to the one in which he was found were discovered at MI6 but never disclosed to DCI Sebire.
There were also concerns over what precautions were taken to ensure his belongings were secured at work following his death.
An MI6 spokesman added: “We fully cooperated with the police and will continue to do so during the ongoing investigation. We gave all the evidence to the police when they wanted it; at no time did we withhold any evidence.”
Detectives were last night preparing to interview and take DNA samples from staff at MI6's London headquarters and GCHQ in Cheltenham.
Police said they hoped the hand towel found in Mr Williams's flat would yield "very promising" results when it undergoes sensitive DNA testing in the coming weeks.
After the inquest, Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire said there were several new lines of inquiry.
She said: "It is highly likely that a third party was involved in Gareth's death and I urge anyone who had contact with him to search their conscience and come forward."
Filed under
bondage,
DNA,
Fiona Wilcox,
grief,
Jackie Sebire,
Michael Broster,
Sir John Sawers,
Telegraph,
towel
by Winter Patriot
on Thursday, May 03, 2012 |
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SHATASM home |
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Western Morning News : Riddle over death of MI6 spy may never be solved
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Riddle over death of MI6 spy may never be solved
May 3, 2012
MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams was probably killed but the "spy in the bag" case might never be solved after mistakes by investigators, an inquest has heard.
Mr Williams's relatives attacked failures by secret services and police after a coroner ruled "many agencies fell short" in their investigation of the holdall death riddle.
Fiona Wilcox said she was sure a third party locked the 31-year-old mathematics prodigy inside the red holdall, probably while he was still alive.
She criticised the 21-month investigation, saying it was unlikely the mystery "will ever be satisfactorily explained".
"The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated," she said during a two-hour narrative verdict at Mr Williams's inquest.
"I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully."
As the eight-day hearing ended, relatives spoke out for the first time about their grief being "exacerbated" by MI6's "reluctance and failure" to assist the police inquiry.
In a statement read out by their solicitor, they said they were "extremely disappointed" at "total inadequacies" in the inquiry.
Scotland Yard vowed to explore new evidence that has come to light, while Sir John Sawers, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, apologised "unreservedly" for delays in raising the alarm about the death.
Mr Williams, a fitness enthusiast originally from Anglesey, North Wales, was found naked, curled up in the padlocked holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London, on August 23, 2010.
Pathologists said he would have suffocated within three minutes if he was alive when he got inside the 32-inch by 19-inch bag. The coroner agreed that Mr Williams was suffocated by carbon dioxide, possibly as an onset of a short-acting poison.
She dismissed speculation that Mr Williams died as a result of some kind of "auto-erotic activity", also denying there was any evidence to suggest claustrophilia – the love of enclosed spaces – was of any interest to him.
His sister, Ceri Subbe, looked on as Dr Wilcox told a packed Westminster Coroner's Court that it "remained a legitimate line of inquiry" that the secret services may have been involved in the death. But she said "there was no evidence to support" that he died at the hands of spies.
Despite a 21-month police inquiry and seven days of evidence, "most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered", she said.
Dr Wilcox said several factors hampered inquiries, including breakdowns in communication by her own coroner's office, a DNA mix-up by forensics and the late submission of evidence by MI6 to police. She went on to question why details of Mr Williams's private life were leaked to the press. The coroner ruled out Mr Williams's interest in bondage and drag queens as having any bearing on the death, before adding: "I wonder if this was an attempt by some third party to manipulate the evidence."
Dr Wilcox found it "highly unlikely" that Mr Williams died alone.
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".
May 3, 2012
MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams was probably killed but the "spy in the bag" case might never be solved after mistakes by investigators, an inquest has heard.
Mr Williams's relatives attacked failures by secret services and police after a coroner ruled "many agencies fell short" in their investigation of the holdall death riddle.
Fiona Wilcox said she was sure a third party locked the 31-year-old mathematics prodigy inside the red holdall, probably while he was still alive.
She criticised the 21-month investigation, saying it was unlikely the mystery "will ever be satisfactorily explained".
"The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated," she said during a two-hour narrative verdict at Mr Williams's inquest.
"I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully."
As the eight-day hearing ended, relatives spoke out for the first time about their grief being "exacerbated" by MI6's "reluctance and failure" to assist the police inquiry.
In a statement read out by their solicitor, they said they were "extremely disappointed" at "total inadequacies" in the inquiry.
Scotland Yard vowed to explore new evidence that has come to light, while Sir John Sawers, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, apologised "unreservedly" for delays in raising the alarm about the death.
Mr Williams, a fitness enthusiast originally from Anglesey, North Wales, was found naked, curled up in the padlocked holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London, on August 23, 2010.
Pathologists said he would have suffocated within three minutes if he was alive when he got inside the 32-inch by 19-inch bag. The coroner agreed that Mr Williams was suffocated by carbon dioxide, possibly as an onset of a short-acting poison.
She dismissed speculation that Mr Williams died as a result of some kind of "auto-erotic activity", also denying there was any evidence to suggest claustrophilia – the love of enclosed spaces – was of any interest to him.
His sister, Ceri Subbe, looked on as Dr Wilcox told a packed Westminster Coroner's Court that it "remained a legitimate line of inquiry" that the secret services may have been involved in the death. But she said "there was no evidence to support" that he died at the hands of spies.
Despite a 21-month police inquiry and seven days of evidence, "most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered", she said.
Dr Wilcox said several factors hampered inquiries, including breakdowns in communication by her own coroner's office, a DNA mix-up by forensics and the late submission of evidence by MI6 to police. She went on to question why details of Mr Williams's private life were leaked to the press. The coroner ruled out Mr Williams's interest in bondage and drag queens as having any bearing on the death, before adding: "I wonder if this was an attempt by some third party to manipulate the evidence."
Dr Wilcox found it "highly unlikely" that Mr Williams died alone.
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".
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ITV : Williams inquest: 'He was unhappy in London' says sister
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Williams inquest: 'He was unhappy in London' says sister
May 3, 2012
Spy Gareth Williams didn't enjoy his life in London and complained of "friction" at MI6 before he was found dead in a sports holdall, his family said today.
Cycling enthusiast Mr Williams was due to return to the West Country a week after he was found dead because he hated the "rat race" and the "flash car competitions", sister Ceri Subbe said.
She told the inquest into his death she did not believe Mr Williams would let a potential killer in his upmarket London flat, adding: "I cannot emphasise enough his conscientiousness".
MI6 were "dragging their feet" in approving his request in April 2010 to return to GCHQ's Gloucestershire HQ, she added.
Her statement added: "He disliked office culture, post-work drinks, flash car competitions and the rat race. He even spoke of friction in the office."
Explaining her comment, Ms Subbe added: "The job was not quite what he expected. He encountered more red tape than he was comfortable with."
Ms Subbe was asked about £20,000 of women's clothes which were found in his flat after he died. She said it was "not particularly" surprising, adding that they were "possibly as a gift".
In a statement read out earlier, Ms Subbe said: "In terms of a big brother figure, Gareth was perfect."
She added: "It's impossible to do justice to Gareth's impressive character without meeting him."
Ms Subbe told how she "had a truly magical time" during her last meeting with Mr Williams for "dainty finger sandwiches" at the Ritz hotel.
"As a family we were incredibly close," her statement said.
The naked and decomposing body of Mr Williams, 31, was found in the bath of his home in Pimlico, west London, on August 23 2010.
May 3, 2012
Spy Gareth Williams didn't enjoy his life in London and complained of "friction" at MI6 before he was found dead in a sports holdall, his family said today.
Cycling enthusiast Mr Williams was due to return to the West Country a week after he was found dead because he hated the "rat race" and the "flash car competitions", sister Ceri Subbe said.
She told the inquest into his death she did not believe Mr Williams would let a potential killer in his upmarket London flat, adding: "I cannot emphasise enough his conscientiousness".
MI6 were "dragging their feet" in approving his request in April 2010 to return to GCHQ's Gloucestershire HQ, she added.
Her statement added: "He disliked office culture, post-work drinks, flash car competitions and the rat race. He even spoke of friction in the office."
Explaining her comment, Ms Subbe added: "The job was not quite what he expected. He encountered more red tape than he was comfortable with."
Ms Subbe was asked about £20,000 of women's clothes which were found in his flat after he died. She said it was "not particularly" surprising, adding that they were "possibly as a gift".
In a statement read out earlier, Ms Subbe said: "In terms of a big brother figure, Gareth was perfect."
She added: "It's impossible to do justice to Gareth's impressive character without meeting him."
Ms Subbe told how she "had a truly magical time" during her last meeting with Mr Williams for "dainty finger sandwiches" at the Ritz hotel.
"As a family we were incredibly close," her statement said.
The naked and decomposing body of Mr Williams, 31, was found in the bath of his home in Pimlico, west London, on August 23 2010.
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Ottawa Citizen : British spy likely killed, coroner says
Thursday, May 03, 2012
British spy likely killed, coroner says
Naked body found in padlocked bag in bathtub
By Katy Lee, Agence France-Presse | May 3, 2012
A British spy whose naked body was found padlocked in a bag in his bathtub was probably unlawfully killed, a coroner concluded Wednesday.
But it is "unlikely" that the full circumstances of the death in 2010 of Gareth Williams, a high-flying code breaker with the MI6 external intelligence agency, will ever be explained, coroner Fiona Wilcox added.
"I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully," Wilcox said at the end of a dramatic inquiry into the death.
She said she was "satisfied" that "a third party moved the bag containing Gareth into the bath" of his London apartment.
MI6 chief John Sawyers apologized to the family after the inquest, admitting that his service should have reported the 31-year-old's absence from work more quickly.
The inquest heard that experts could not determine how the gifted mathematician had died because his body had been decomposing for a week by the time it was discovered.
London's Metropolitan Police said after the hearing they were pursuing new lines of inquiry raised by the inquest, after the coroner had criticized their handling of the case.
"I have always been satisfied that a third party may have been involved in his death, and the coroner has confirmed that in her findings," said Det. Chief Insp. Jackie Sebire.
"The inquest has raised several new lines of inquiry and the investigation will now refocus," she added. "I urge anyone who knew Gareth or who had contact with him to search their conscience and come forward."
Pathologists said in evidence that Williams likely died from poisoning or suffocation.
The hearings focused on whether he could have locked himself into the red North Face holdall as part of a lone sex act, after examination of his computer showed he had visited bondage websites.
But the coroner said it was "highly unlikely" that Williams could have got inside the bag alone and observed that the surfaces around the bathtub were strangely clear of any evidence.
"If Gareth had been carrying out some kind of peculiar experiment, he wouldn't care if he left any foot or fingerprints," Wilcox concluded.
The inquest heard last week from experts who had failed to padlock themselves into bags identical to Williams' holdall, despite several hundred attempts.
One expert said escapologist Harry Houdini "would have struggled" to pull off the feat.
Wilcox ruled out the possibility that Williams' apparent interest in bondage had an impact on his death, and observed: "I would have expected much more Internet activity to have been recovered."
The coroner also questioned leaks of details about Williams' private life, adding: "I wonder if this was an attempt by some third party to manipulate the evidence."
Police found women's clothing worth more than $30,000 in the flat as well as makeup, but Wilcox said there was no evidence to suggest Williams was a transvestite.
There was some suggestion that his interest in female footwear could have been of a sexual nature, but this was not particularly unusual, she argued.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Naked body found in padlocked bag in bathtub
By Katy Lee, Agence France-Presse | May 3, 2012
A British spy whose naked body was found padlocked in a bag in his bathtub was probably unlawfully killed, a coroner concluded Wednesday.
But it is "unlikely" that the full circumstances of the death in 2010 of Gareth Williams, a high-flying code breaker with the MI6 external intelligence agency, will ever be explained, coroner Fiona Wilcox added.
"I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully," Wilcox said at the end of a dramatic inquiry into the death.
She said she was "satisfied" that "a third party moved the bag containing Gareth into the bath" of his London apartment.
MI6 chief John Sawyers apologized to the family after the inquest, admitting that his service should have reported the 31-year-old's absence from work more quickly.
The inquest heard that experts could not determine how the gifted mathematician had died because his body had been decomposing for a week by the time it was discovered.
London's Metropolitan Police said after the hearing they were pursuing new lines of inquiry raised by the inquest, after the coroner had criticized their handling of the case.
"I have always been satisfied that a third party may have been involved in his death, and the coroner has confirmed that in her findings," said Det. Chief Insp. Jackie Sebire.
"The inquest has raised several new lines of inquiry and the investigation will now refocus," she added. "I urge anyone who knew Gareth or who had contact with him to search their conscience and come forward."
Pathologists said in evidence that Williams likely died from poisoning or suffocation.
The hearings focused on whether he could have locked himself into the red North Face holdall as part of a lone sex act, after examination of his computer showed he had visited bondage websites.
But the coroner said it was "highly unlikely" that Williams could have got inside the bag alone and observed that the surfaces around the bathtub were strangely clear of any evidence.
"If Gareth had been carrying out some kind of peculiar experiment, he wouldn't care if he left any foot or fingerprints," Wilcox concluded.
The inquest heard last week from experts who had failed to padlock themselves into bags identical to Williams' holdall, despite several hundred attempts.
One expert said escapologist Harry Houdini "would have struggled" to pull off the feat.
Wilcox ruled out the possibility that Williams' apparent interest in bondage had an impact on his death, and observed: "I would have expected much more Internet activity to have been recovered."
The coroner also questioned leaks of details about Williams' private life, adding: "I wonder if this was an attempt by some third party to manipulate the evidence."
Police found women's clothing worth more than $30,000 in the flat as well as makeup, but Wilcox said there was no evidence to suggest Williams was a transvestite.
There was some suggestion that his interest in female footwear could have been of a sexual nature, but this was not particularly unusual, she argued.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
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This Is London : Police to take DNA from 50 MI6 agents who may have visited ‘spy in bag’ Gareth Williams
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Police to take DNA from 50 MI6 agents who may have visited ‘spy in bag’ Gareth Williams
Justin Davenport and Paul Cheston | May 3, 2012
Scotland Yard is to take further DNA and fingerprint samples from MI6 colleagues of Gareth Williams, who was found dead in a bag at his flat.
Detectives said they are pursuing at least three leads and will take samples from anyone who might have entered the flat in Pimlico, where the spy’s naked body was discovered in the padlocked North Face holdall in a bath in August 2010.
One source close to the investigation said: “We will follow the evidence and we will not be taking no for an answer.”
Officers suspect that a member of the security services working for either MI6 or GCHQ was with Mr Williams in the flat on the night he died.
Efforts will focus on traces of DNA left on a toggle of the bag and DNA found on a hand towel — and a mobile telephone which had been re-set to factory settings an hour and a half before Mr Williams was last known to have used his computer.
Forensic science experts who helped with the DNA breakthrough in the Stephen Lawrence investigation that led to two murder convictions are now examining the items.
So far 15 of Mr Williams’s colleagues at GCHQ and MI6 have voluntarily provided DNA and fingerprints to police.
A coroner ruled yesterday that the 31-year-old spy from Anglesey was “probably unlawfully killed”.
In a narrative verdict at Westminster coroner’s court, Dr Fiona Wilcox said the cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been “criminally mediated”.
She said it was a legitimate line of inquiry that the GCHQ codebreaker — who was on secondment to MI6 — could have been killed by a colleague because he only let trusted people into his home.
Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, who is leading the investigation, appealed to people who “knew Gareth or who had contact with him to search their conscience” and come forward with information.
Scotland Yard has launched a review of the handling of the evidence after it emerged that a senior counter terrorism officer did not tell colleagues investigating the death about items found in Mr Williams’s desk at MI6 headquarters.
The inquest heard how Detective Superintendent Mick Broster, who acted as the liaison between homicide officers and MI6, did not reveal that nine memory sticks and a holdall similar to the one in which the spy’s naked body was found, had been discovered at his desk.
Anyone with information is asked to ring 020 8358 0200 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Justin Davenport and Paul Cheston | May 3, 2012
Scotland Yard is to take further DNA and fingerprint samples from MI6 colleagues of Gareth Williams, who was found dead in a bag at his flat.
Detectives said they are pursuing at least three leads and will take samples from anyone who might have entered the flat in Pimlico, where the spy’s naked body was discovered in the padlocked North Face holdall in a bath in August 2010.
One source close to the investigation said: “We will follow the evidence and we will not be taking no for an answer.”
Officers suspect that a member of the security services working for either MI6 or GCHQ was with Mr Williams in the flat on the night he died.
Efforts will focus on traces of DNA left on a toggle of the bag and DNA found on a hand towel — and a mobile telephone which had been re-set to factory settings an hour and a half before Mr Williams was last known to have used his computer.
Forensic science experts who helped with the DNA breakthrough in the Stephen Lawrence investigation that led to two murder convictions are now examining the items.
So far 15 of Mr Williams’s colleagues at GCHQ and MI6 have voluntarily provided DNA and fingerprints to police.
A coroner ruled yesterday that the 31-year-old spy from Anglesey was “probably unlawfully killed”.
In a narrative verdict at Westminster coroner’s court, Dr Fiona Wilcox said the cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been “criminally mediated”.
She said it was a legitimate line of inquiry that the GCHQ codebreaker — who was on secondment to MI6 — could have been killed by a colleague because he only let trusted people into his home.
Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, who is leading the investigation, appealed to people who “knew Gareth or who had contact with him to search their conscience” and come forward with information.
Scotland Yard has launched a review of the handling of the evidence after it emerged that a senior counter terrorism officer did not tell colleagues investigating the death about items found in Mr Williams’s desk at MI6 headquarters.
The inquest heard how Detective Superintendent Mick Broster, who acted as the liaison between homicide officers and MI6, did not reveal that nine memory sticks and a holdall similar to the one in which the spy’s naked body was found, had been discovered at his desk.
Anyone with information is asked to ring 020 8358 0200 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
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Express : CORONER: MI6 AGENT MAY HAVE KILLED SPY IN BAG
Thursday, May 03, 2012
CORONER: MI6 AGENT MAY HAVE KILLED SPY IN BAG
Cyril Dixon | May 3, 2012
MI6 SPY Gareth Williams was “unlawfully killed” by a mystery intruder who locked him naked inside a holdall and placed it in his bath, an inquest ruled yesterday.
Westminster Coroner Fiona Wilcox concluded that another person was at the flat and played a part in his bizarre death.
And, in an unexpected verdict, she said it was a “legitimate line of inquiry” that the killer was a fellow member of the secret service.
At the end of the eight-day hearing, the family of Mr Williams attacked his MI6 bosses for making their ordeal worse with a “reluctance and failure” to investigate properly.
Meanwhile, spy chief Sir John Sawers admitted his staff’s failings and issued an unreserved public apology for adding to the family’s “anguish and suffering”.
Last night Dr Wilcox’s inquest verdict was interpreted as a veiled ruling that the 31-year-old codebreaker had been murdered.
She said: “I am satisfied so I am sure that a third party placed the bag in the bath and, on the balance of probabilities, locked the bag.
“The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated. I am therefore satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully.”
She also said the mystery would probably not be “satisfactorily explained” because of flaws in the 21-month investigation.
The inquest heard the body of Mr Williams was found at his flat in Pimlico, central London, a week after he failed to turn up for a meeting at MI6 headquarters.
He was left in the North Face sports holdall in the foetal position, with the bag locked from the outside and the padlock keys inside with him.
Police found £20,000 worth of women’s designer clothes, shoes and wigs inside the top-floor apartment – most of which were unworn, some still in their packaging.
Dr Wilcox ruled that Mr Williams must have been poisoned or suffocated before being left in the bag, then died from an excess of carbon dioxide in his blood.
In a statement, his parents Ian and Ellen, and sister Ceri Subbe, who attended the inquest throughout, attacked MI6 bungling.
It read: “To lose a son and a brother at any time is a tragedy. To lose a son and brother in such circumstances as have been outlined during the course of this inquest only confounds the tragedy.
“Our grief is exacerbated by the failure of his employers at MI6 to take even the most basic inquiries as to his whereabouts and welfare which any reasonable employer would have taken.”
The family, from Anglesey, North Wales, were “disappointed by the reluctance and failure of MI6” to make relevant information available.
They demanded to know how the Scotland Yard Commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, planned to take the investigation into the death of Mr Williams forward after the mistakes revealed by the inquest.
MI6 said in a statement that Sir John Sawers recognised that the lack of urgency “contributed to the anguish and suffering of his family”, adding: “On behalf of the whole organisation, Sir John regrets this deeply and apologises unreservedly.”
Scotland Yard’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said the force had launched a review. Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, the officer leading the investigation, said the inquest had raised several new lines of inquiry and they would “actively pursue all the evidence”.
Cyril Dixon | May 3, 2012
MI6 SPY Gareth Williams was “unlawfully killed” by a mystery intruder who locked him naked inside a holdall and placed it in his bath, an inquest ruled yesterday.
Westminster Coroner Fiona Wilcox concluded that another person was at the flat and played a part in his bizarre death.
And, in an unexpected verdict, she said it was a “legitimate line of inquiry” that the killer was a fellow member of the secret service.
At the end of the eight-day hearing, the family of Mr Williams attacked his MI6 bosses for making their ordeal worse with a “reluctance and failure” to investigate properly.
Meanwhile, spy chief Sir John Sawers admitted his staff’s failings and issued an unreserved public apology for adding to the family’s “anguish and suffering”.
Last night Dr Wilcox’s inquest verdict was interpreted as a veiled ruling that the 31-year-old codebreaker had been murdered.
She said: “I am satisfied so I am sure that a third party placed the bag in the bath and, on the balance of probabilities, locked the bag.
“The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated. I am therefore satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully.”
She also said the mystery would probably not be “satisfactorily explained” because of flaws in the 21-month investigation.
The inquest heard the body of Mr Williams was found at his flat in Pimlico, central London, a week after he failed to turn up for a meeting at MI6 headquarters.
He was left in the North Face sports holdall in the foetal position, with the bag locked from the outside and the padlock keys inside with him.
Police found £20,000 worth of women’s designer clothes, shoes and wigs inside the top-floor apartment – most of which were unworn, some still in their packaging.
Dr Wilcox ruled that Mr Williams must have been poisoned or suffocated before being left in the bag, then died from an excess of carbon dioxide in his blood.
In a statement, his parents Ian and Ellen, and sister Ceri Subbe, who attended the inquest throughout, attacked MI6 bungling.
It read: “To lose a son and a brother at any time is a tragedy. To lose a son and brother in such circumstances as have been outlined during the course of this inquest only confounds the tragedy.
“Our grief is exacerbated by the failure of his employers at MI6 to take even the most basic inquiries as to his whereabouts and welfare which any reasonable employer would have taken.”
The family, from Anglesey, North Wales, were “disappointed by the reluctance and failure of MI6” to make relevant information available.
They demanded to know how the Scotland Yard Commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, planned to take the investigation into the death of Mr Williams forward after the mistakes revealed by the inquest.
MI6 said in a statement that Sir John Sawers recognised that the lack of urgency “contributed to the anguish and suffering of his family”, adding: “On behalf of the whole organisation, Sir John regrets this deeply and apologises unreservedly.”
Scotland Yard’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said the force had launched a review. Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, the officer leading the investigation, said the inquest had raised several new lines of inquiry and they would “actively pursue all the evidence”.
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Global Post : UK coroner criticizes MI6 over death of Gareth Williams, spy found naked and dead in a bag
Thursday, May 03, 2012
UK coroner criticizes MI6 over death of Gareth Williams, spy found naked and dead in a bag
A UK coroner has concluded that Gareth Williams, the British spy whose naked body was found padlocked in a bag in his bathtub, was probably unlawfully killed.
May 3, 2012
Coroner Fiona Wilcox said she was sure a third party locked the code-breaker inside the red holdall in which his naked body was found in his bathtub.
Police strongly suspect a member of MI6 or GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) was in his flat the day he died and will take DNA samples from up to 50 of his colleagues, the Daily Mail reported.
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.
She had earlier said there was not enough evidence to deliver a formal unlawful killing verdict.
The verdict was highly critical of the Metropolitan police's counter-terrorism branch and MI6, The Guardian reported.
Wilcox severely criticized Williams's employers at MI6 who failed to report him missing for seven days when he did not turn up for work.
She said she could "only speculate as to what effect this [delay] had on the investigation."
The head of the intelligence service, meantime, made an unreserved apology to Williams's family over the delay in reporting him missing and the subsequent anguish it caused.
The BBC cited intelligence expert Crispin Black as saying that a cover-up by British secret services could not be ruled out.
"There's a possibility there's been some sort of clean-up by MI6 — that's a clear possibility," said Black, an intelligence analyst and former advisor to the UK government.
"One thing I'm pretty sure of, and I think others will be too, is that the police are unlikely to have been the first people around to that flat."
The 21-month investigation into Williams' death has yet to yield a suspect.
Forensic experts are hoping for a breakthrough from DNA tests on a green towel discovered in his kitchen.
A UK coroner has concluded that Gareth Williams, the British spy whose naked body was found padlocked in a bag in his bathtub, was probably unlawfully killed.
May 3, 2012
Coroner Fiona Wilcox said she was sure a third party locked the code-breaker inside the red holdall in which his naked body was found in his bathtub.
Police strongly suspect a member of MI6 or GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) was in his flat the day he died and will take DNA samples from up to 50 of his colleagues, the Daily Mail reported.
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.
She had earlier said there was not enough evidence to deliver a formal unlawful killing verdict.
The verdict was highly critical of the Metropolitan police's counter-terrorism branch and MI6, The Guardian reported.
Wilcox severely criticized Williams's employers at MI6 who failed to report him missing for seven days when he did not turn up for work.
She said she could "only speculate as to what effect this [delay] had on the investigation."
The head of the intelligence service, meantime, made an unreserved apology to Williams's family over the delay in reporting him missing and the subsequent anguish it caused.
The BBC cited intelligence expert Crispin Black as saying that a cover-up by British secret services could not be ruled out.
"There's a possibility there's been some sort of clean-up by MI6 — that's a clear possibility," said Black, an intelligence analyst and former advisor to the UK government.
"One thing I'm pretty sure of, and I think others will be too, is that the police are unlikely to have been the first people around to that flat."
The 21-month investigation into Williams' death has yet to yield a suspect.
Forensic experts are hoping for a breakthrough from DNA tests on a green towel discovered in his kitchen.
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Chester Chronicle : Coroner rules spy killed by third party
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Coroner rules spy killed by third party
May 3, 2012
A HIGH profile inquest involving a Chester barrister has ruled that MI6 code-breaker Gareth Williams was unlawfully killed by a third party “on the balance of probabilities”.
Anthony O’Toole, of Linenhall Chambers, has been representing the Anglesey-based family of Mr Williams whose body was found in a holdall at his London flat in August 2010.
In a sensational narrative verdict, Dr Fiona Wilcox yesterday said a third party was involved in his death and that is was likely to have been “criminally mediated”.
Mr Williams’ family, including his sister and former Chester woman Ceri Subbe, have always suspected third party involvement possibly linked to a secret services agency.
Mrs Subbe worked as a physiotherapist at the Wrexham Maelor Hospital and lived in Brook Lane, Newton, at the time of her brother’s death. Last week she told Westminster Coroner’s Court her sibling was ‘a scrupulous risk-assessor’ who would not have let a potential killer into his flat.
The coroner ruled that because of the lack of evidence she could not return a formal verdict of unlawful killing.
But in her narrative she concluded that he was most probably killed.
She said: “I am satisfied so that I am sure that a third party placed the bag (which contained Gareth) in to the bath and on the balance of probabilities locked the bag.
“The cause of death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated.”
Linenhall Chambers has been inundated with media enquiries about the case but barrister Mr O’Toole is not giving interviews.
May 3, 2012
A HIGH profile inquest involving a Chester barrister has ruled that MI6 code-breaker Gareth Williams was unlawfully killed by a third party “on the balance of probabilities”.
Anthony O’Toole, of Linenhall Chambers, has been representing the Anglesey-based family of Mr Williams whose body was found in a holdall at his London flat in August 2010.
In a sensational narrative verdict, Dr Fiona Wilcox yesterday said a third party was involved in his death and that is was likely to have been “criminally mediated”.
Mr Williams’ family, including his sister and former Chester woman Ceri Subbe, have always suspected third party involvement possibly linked to a secret services agency.
Mrs Subbe worked as a physiotherapist at the Wrexham Maelor Hospital and lived in Brook Lane, Newton, at the time of her brother’s death. Last week she told Westminster Coroner’s Court her sibling was ‘a scrupulous risk-assessor’ who would not have let a potential killer into his flat.
The coroner ruled that because of the lack of evidence she could not return a formal verdict of unlawful killing.
But in her narrative she concluded that he was most probably killed.
She said: “I am satisfied so that I am sure that a third party placed the bag (which contained Gareth) in to the bath and on the balance of probabilities locked the bag.
“The cause of death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated.”
Linenhall Chambers has been inundated with media enquiries about the case but barrister Mr O’Toole is not giving interviews.
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Big Pond News : Death of spy 'may never be explained'
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Death of spy 'may never be explained'
May 3, 2012
It is unlikely the death of a British spy whose naked body was found padlocked in a bag in his bath will ever be fully explained, the coroner told the final day of his inquest.
Coroner Fiona Wilcox said on Wednesday it was 'unlikely' the circumstances of Gareth Williams' 2010 death 'will ever be satisfactorily explained' given that 'most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered'.
Wilcox said she did not have enough evidence to give a verdict of unlawful killing in the death of Williams, a high-flying codebreaker with the MI6 external intelligence agency, despite a plea from his family's lawyer.
She will instead deliver a narrative verdict, listing the possibilities but failing to reach a conclusion?
Williams' family have previously said they believe secret agents versed in the 'dark arts' tried to cover up his death, while the detective heading the investigation said Tuesday she was convinced someone else was involved.
'My strongest belief is that a third party was involved and I would ask people to search their consciences and come to us to find some resolutions to this case and some peace for his family,' Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire said.
The inquest looked into whether Williams could have padlocked himself in the bag alone, after speculation he might have done so as part of a sex game, but one expert said even escapologist Harry Houdini 'would have struggled' to pull off the feat.
Pathologists said Williams likely died from poisoning or suffocation, but decomposition of his body reduced the scope for pinpointing the cause of death.
The spy's employers at MI6 failed to report him missing for a week, the inquest has heard.
Police also told the inquest they had not examined some of Williams' possessions including nine memory sticks because his bosses at MI6 said they were irrelevant.
Police found women's clothing worth about STG20,000 ($A31,545.74) in Williams' flat, while the inquest also heard he visited bondage sites, filmed himself nearly naked, and was once found tied to a bed.
His sister, Ceri Subbe, told the inquest Williams had been unhappy at MI6, where he was seconded from Britain's intelligence monitoring centre.
May 3, 2012
It is unlikely the death of a British spy whose naked body was found padlocked in a bag in his bath will ever be fully explained, the coroner told the final day of his inquest.
Coroner Fiona Wilcox said on Wednesday it was 'unlikely' the circumstances of Gareth Williams' 2010 death 'will ever be satisfactorily explained' given that 'most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered'.
Wilcox said she did not have enough evidence to give a verdict of unlawful killing in the death of Williams, a high-flying codebreaker with the MI6 external intelligence agency, despite a plea from his family's lawyer.
She will instead deliver a narrative verdict, listing the possibilities but failing to reach a conclusion?
Williams' family have previously said they believe secret agents versed in the 'dark arts' tried to cover up his death, while the detective heading the investigation said Tuesday she was convinced someone else was involved.
'My strongest belief is that a third party was involved and I would ask people to search their consciences and come to us to find some resolutions to this case and some peace for his family,' Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire said.
The inquest looked into whether Williams could have padlocked himself in the bag alone, after speculation he might have done so as part of a sex game, but one expert said even escapologist Harry Houdini 'would have struggled' to pull off the feat.
Pathologists said Williams likely died from poisoning or suffocation, but decomposition of his body reduced the scope for pinpointing the cause of death.
The spy's employers at MI6 failed to report him missing for a week, the inquest has heard.
Police also told the inquest they had not examined some of Williams' possessions including nine memory sticks because his bosses at MI6 said they were irrelevant.
Police found women's clothing worth about STG20,000 ($A31,545.74) in Williams' flat, while the inquest also heard he visited bondage sites, filmed himself nearly naked, and was once found tied to a bed.
His sister, Ceri Subbe, told the inquest Williams had been unhappy at MI6, where he was seconded from Britain's intelligence monitoring centre.
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ninemsn (Au) : MI6 codebreaker 'probably killed'
Thursday, May 03, 2012
MI6 codebreaker 'probably killed'
May 3, 2012
MI6 code breaker Gareth Williams was probably killed but the "spy in the bag" case might never be solved after mistakes by investigators, an inquest has heard.
Mr Williams's relatives attacked failures by secret services and police after a coroner ruled "many agencies fell short" in their investigation of the holdall death riddle.
Fiona Wilcox said she was sure a third party locked the 31-year-old mathematics prodigy inside the red holdall, probably while he was still alive.
She criticised the 21-month investigation, saying it was unlikely the mystery "will ever be satisfactorily explained".
"The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated," she said during a two-hour narrative verdict at Mr Williams's inquest.
"I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully."
As the eight-day hearing ended, relatives spoke out for the first time about their grief being "exacerbated" by MI6's "reluctance and failure" to assist the police inquiry.
In a statement read out by their solicitor, they said they were "extremely disappointed" at "total inadequacies" in the inquiry.
Scotland Yard vowed to explore new evidence that has come to light, while Sir John Sawers, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, apologised "unreservedly" for delays in raising the alarm about the death.
Mr Williams, a fitness enthusiast originally from Anglesey, North Wales, was found naked, curled up in the padlocked holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London, on August 23 2010.
Pathologists said he would have suffocated within three minutes if he was alive when he got inside the 80 centimetres by 48 centimetres bag.
The coroner agreed that Mr Williams was suffocated by carbon dioxide, possibly as an onset of a short-acting poison.
She dismissed speculation that Mr Williams died as a result of some kind of "auto-erotic activity", also denying there was any evidence to suggest claustrophilia - the love of enclosed spaces - was of any interest to him.
His sister, Ceri Subbe, looked on as Dr Wilcox told a packed Westminster Coroner's Court that it "remained a legitimate line of inquiry" that the secret services may have been involved in the death.
But she said "there was no evidence to support" that he died at the hands of spies.
Despite a 21-month police inquiry and seven days of evidence, "most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered", she said.
Dr Wilcox said several factors hampered inquiries, including breakdowns in communication by her own coroner's office, a DNA mix-up by forensics and the late submission of evidence by MI6 to police.
She went on to question why details of Mr Williams's private life were leaked to the press.
The coroner ruled out Mr Williams's interest in bondage and drag queens as having any bearing on the death, before adding: "I wonder if this was an attempt by some third party to manipulate the evidence."
The lack of hand and footprints in the bathroom was "significant", Dr Wilcox said, telling the court: "In relation to the prints found within the bathroom, in my view what was more significant was what was not found rather than what was found."
Dr Wilcox found it "highly unlikely" that Mr Williams died alone, saying: "If Gareth had been carrying out some kind of peculiar experiment, he wouldn't care if he left any foot or fingerprints."
She said the "highly unusual circumstances" of Mr Williams's death immediately raised the possibility of foul play, which had prompted "endless speculation".
But the coroner added that "taking all these shortfalls together, I am satisfied that the evidence is reliable and that we do not have to adjourn at this point".
Revelations that MI6 failed to raise the alarm about his disappearance for more than a week prompted elaborate conspiracy theories about his job and private life.
Several years before his death, Mr Williams tied himself to his bed and had to be cut free by his landlord and landlady.
It also emerged that the bachelor stored STG20,000 ($A31,500)-worth of women's clothes in his immaculate flat and was fascinated by drag queens.
But Dr Wilcox said there was no evidence to suggest the spy was a transvestite "or interested in any such thing".
The make-up found in his flat was more likely to reflect his interest in fashion, she argued.
And the wigs that were found there were "far more consistent with dress-up such as attendance at a manga conference", she added.
There was some suggestion that his interest in female footwear could have been of a sexual nature, but this was not unusual, Dr Wilcox observed.
"Gareth was naked in a bag when he was found, not cross-dressed, not in high-heeled shoes," she said.
Mr Williams would have been unlikely to invite a third party who was not a family member into his home, Dr Wilcox said, 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."
If someone else was there without having been invited, "that raises the possibility of an illegitimate purpose on the third party's part", she said.
"Gareth may have worked out a technique how to get into the bag and lock it from inside, but I find it extremely unlikely that he did so."
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".
May 3, 2012
MI6 code breaker Gareth Williams was probably killed but the "spy in the bag" case might never be solved after mistakes by investigators, an inquest has heard.
Mr Williams's relatives attacked failures by secret services and police after a coroner ruled "many agencies fell short" in their investigation of the holdall death riddle.
Fiona Wilcox said she was sure a third party locked the 31-year-old mathematics prodigy inside the red holdall, probably while he was still alive.
She criticised the 21-month investigation, saying it was unlikely the mystery "will ever be satisfactorily explained".
"The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated," she said during a two-hour narrative verdict at Mr Williams's inquest.
"I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully."
As the eight-day hearing ended, relatives spoke out for the first time about their grief being "exacerbated" by MI6's "reluctance and failure" to assist the police inquiry.
In a statement read out by their solicitor, they said they were "extremely disappointed" at "total inadequacies" in the inquiry.
Scotland Yard vowed to explore new evidence that has come to light, while Sir John Sawers, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, apologised "unreservedly" for delays in raising the alarm about the death.
Mr Williams, a fitness enthusiast originally from Anglesey, North Wales, was found naked, curled up in the padlocked holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London, on August 23 2010.
Pathologists said he would have suffocated within three minutes if he was alive when he got inside the 80 centimetres by 48 centimetres bag.
The coroner agreed that Mr Williams was suffocated by carbon dioxide, possibly as an onset of a short-acting poison.
She dismissed speculation that Mr Williams died as a result of some kind of "auto-erotic activity", also denying there was any evidence to suggest claustrophilia - the love of enclosed spaces - was of any interest to him.
His sister, Ceri Subbe, looked on as Dr Wilcox told a packed Westminster Coroner's Court that it "remained a legitimate line of inquiry" that the secret services may have been involved in the death.
But she said "there was no evidence to support" that he died at the hands of spies.
Despite a 21-month police inquiry and seven days of evidence, "most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered", she said.
Dr Wilcox said several factors hampered inquiries, including breakdowns in communication by her own coroner's office, a DNA mix-up by forensics and the late submission of evidence by MI6 to police.
She went on to question why details of Mr Williams's private life were leaked to the press.
The coroner ruled out Mr Williams's interest in bondage and drag queens as having any bearing on the death, before adding: "I wonder if this was an attempt by some third party to manipulate the evidence."
The lack of hand and footprints in the bathroom was "significant", Dr Wilcox said, telling the court: "In relation to the prints found within the bathroom, in my view what was more significant was what was not found rather than what was found."
Dr Wilcox found it "highly unlikely" that Mr Williams died alone, saying: "If Gareth had been carrying out some kind of peculiar experiment, he wouldn't care if he left any foot or fingerprints."
She said the "highly unusual circumstances" of Mr Williams's death immediately raised the possibility of foul play, which had prompted "endless speculation".
But the coroner added that "taking all these shortfalls together, I am satisfied that the evidence is reliable and that we do not have to adjourn at this point".
Revelations that MI6 failed to raise the alarm about his disappearance for more than a week prompted elaborate conspiracy theories about his job and private life.
Several years before his death, Mr Williams tied himself to his bed and had to be cut free by his landlord and landlady.
It also emerged that the bachelor stored STG20,000 ($A31,500)-worth of women's clothes in his immaculate flat and was fascinated by drag queens.
But Dr Wilcox said there was no evidence to suggest the spy was a transvestite "or interested in any such thing".
The make-up found in his flat was more likely to reflect his interest in fashion, she argued.
And the wigs that were found there were "far more consistent with dress-up such as attendance at a manga conference", she added.
There was some suggestion that his interest in female footwear could have been of a sexual nature, but this was not unusual, Dr Wilcox observed.
"Gareth was naked in a bag when he was found, not cross-dressed, not in high-heeled shoes," she said.
Mr Williams would have been unlikely to invite a third party who was not a family member into his home, Dr Wilcox said, 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."
If someone else was there without having been invited, "that raises the possibility of an illegitimate purpose on the third party's part", she said.
"Gareth may have worked out a technique how to get into the bag and lock it from inside, but I find it extremely unlikely that he did so."
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".
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by Winter Patriot
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Scotsman : Gareth Williams profile: Maths genius with a solitary lifestyle
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Gareth Williams profile: Maths genius with a solitary lifestyle
May 3, 2012
Gareth Williams crammed his life with secrets – in and out of work.
The 31-year-old excelled as a spy, producing “world-class” code-breaking intelligence for MI6 and the eavesdropping station GCHQ.
Colleagues, friends, family and police queued up to pay tribute to his extraordinary ability, which saw him land a first-class mathematics degree aged 17.
But the teetotal fitness enthusiast lived a solitary personal life that was dramatically removed from the world of espionage.
Police, who painstakingly pieced together his unlikely interests, discovered a fiercely private bachelor fascinated by women’s clothes and drag-queen culture.
He enrolled on a fashion course and collected £20,000 of unworn designer women’s clothing at his pristine flat, including 26 pairs of designer women’s shoes. Small and medium-sized dresses were hung up in his wardrobes, along with women’s wigs, including one Mr Williams had bought on a recent trip to Las Vegas.
Internet searches by Mr Williams and a video taken on his Apple iPhone suggested he wore the shoes.
The flamboyant interests were a far cry from the rigid discipline of work, where he was fast-tracked through the ranks at GCHQ before arriving at MI6 on secondment.
Stephen Gale, his boss at GCHQ’s Cheltenham base, said Mr Williams stunned fellow intelligence specialists with his code-breaking talents when he landed his first job at 21.
He cycled around the Gloucestershire hills “like a red bullet” but won the respect of his colleagues for his “warm smile” and sense of humour under pressure, Mr Gale said. Bosses were so impressed that they paid for him to gain further qualifications in advanced mathematics at Cambridge University.
Mr Williams had won two awards at GCHQ, one for a “Herculean effort” in his top-secret work, Mr Gale added.
But the keen cyclist and fell runner missed the countryside after arriving in London.
Sister Ceri Subbe said: “He disliked office culture, post-work drinks, flash car competitions and the rat race. He even spoke of friction in the office.”
Ms Subbe said her brother was immensely close with his family, from Anglesey.
“In terms of a big brother figure, Gareth was perfect,” she said.
“It’s impossible to do justice to Gareth’s impressive character without meeting him.”
Mr Williams and Ms Subbe “had a truly magical time” during their last meeting for “dainty finger sandwiches” at the Ritz hotel, she said.
May 3, 2012
Gareth Williams crammed his life with secrets – in and out of work.
The 31-year-old excelled as a spy, producing “world-class” code-breaking intelligence for MI6 and the eavesdropping station GCHQ.
Colleagues, friends, family and police queued up to pay tribute to his extraordinary ability, which saw him land a first-class mathematics degree aged 17.
But the teetotal fitness enthusiast lived a solitary personal life that was dramatically removed from the world of espionage.
Police, who painstakingly pieced together his unlikely interests, discovered a fiercely private bachelor fascinated by women’s clothes and drag-queen culture.
He enrolled on a fashion course and collected £20,000 of unworn designer women’s clothing at his pristine flat, including 26 pairs of designer women’s shoes. Small and medium-sized dresses were hung up in his wardrobes, along with women’s wigs, including one Mr Williams had bought on a recent trip to Las Vegas.
Internet searches by Mr Williams and a video taken on his Apple iPhone suggested he wore the shoes.
The flamboyant interests were a far cry from the rigid discipline of work, where he was fast-tracked through the ranks at GCHQ before arriving at MI6 on secondment.
Stephen Gale, his boss at GCHQ’s Cheltenham base, said Mr Williams stunned fellow intelligence specialists with his code-breaking talents when he landed his first job at 21.
He cycled around the Gloucestershire hills “like a red bullet” but won the respect of his colleagues for his “warm smile” and sense of humour under pressure, Mr Gale said. Bosses were so impressed that they paid for him to gain further qualifications in advanced mathematics at Cambridge University.
Mr Williams had won two awards at GCHQ, one for a “Herculean effort” in his top-secret work, Mr Gale added.
But the keen cyclist and fell runner missed the countryside after arriving in London.
Sister Ceri Subbe said: “He disliked office culture, post-work drinks, flash car competitions and the rat race. He even spoke of friction in the office.”
Ms Subbe said her brother was immensely close with his family, from Anglesey.
“In terms of a big brother figure, Gareth was perfect,” she said.
“It’s impossible to do justice to Gareth’s impressive character without meeting him.”
Mr Williams and Ms Subbe “had a truly magical time” during their last meeting for “dainty finger sandwiches” at the Ritz hotel, she said.
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SMH : MI6 codebreaker 'probably killed'
Thursday, May 03, 2012
MI6 codebreaker 'probably killed'
May 3, 2012
MI6 code breaker Gareth Williams was probably killed but the "spy in the bag" case might never be solved after mistakes by investigators, an inquest has heard.
Mr Williams's relatives attacked failures by secret services and police after a coroner ruled "many agencies fell short" in their investigation of the holdall death riddle.
Fiona Wilcox said she was sure a third party locked the 31-year-old mathematics prodigy inside the red holdall, probably while he was still alive.
She criticised the 21-month investigation, saying it was unlikely the mystery "will ever be satisfactorily explained".
"The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated," she said during a two-hour narrative verdict at Mr Williams's inquest.
"I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully."
As the eight-day hearing ended, relatives spoke out for the first time about their grief being "exacerbated" by MI6's "reluctance and failure" to assist the police inquiry.
In a statement read out by their solicitor, they said they were "extremely disappointed" at "total inadequacies" in the inquiry.
Scotland Yard vowed to explore new evidence that has come to light, while Sir John Sawers, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, apologised "unreservedly" for delays in raising the alarm about the death.
Mr Williams, a fitness enthusiast originally from Anglesey, North Wales, was found naked, curled up in the padlocked holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London, on August 23 2010.
Pathologists said he would have suffocated within three minutes if he was alive when he got inside the 80 centimetres by 48 centimetres bag.
The coroner agreed that Mr Williams was suffocated by carbon dioxide, possibly as an onset of a short-acting poison.
She dismissed speculation that Mr Williams died as a result of some kind of "auto-erotic activity", also denying there was any evidence to suggest claustrophilia - the love of enclosed spaces - was of any interest to him.
His sister, Ceri Subbe, looked on as Dr Wilcox told a packed Westminster Coroner's Court that it "remained a legitimate line of inquiry" that the secret services may have been involved in the death.
But she said "there was no evidence to support" that he died at the hands of spies.
Despite a 21-month police inquiry and seven days of evidence, "most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered", she said.
Dr Wilcox said several factors hampered inquiries, including breakdowns in communication by her own coroner's office, a DNA mix-up by forensics and the late submission of evidence by MI6 to police.
She went on to question why details of Mr Williams's private life were leaked to the press.
The coroner ruled out Mr Williams's interest in bondage and drag queens as having any bearing on the death, before adding: "I wonder if this was an attempt by some third party to manipulate the evidence."
The lack of hand and footprints in the bathroom was "significant", Dr Wilcox said, telling the court: "In relation to the prints found within the bathroom, in my view what was more significant was what was not found rather than what was found."
Dr Wilcox found it "highly unlikely" that Mr Williams died alone, saying: "If Gareth had been carrying out some kind of peculiar experiment, he wouldn't care if he left any foot or fingerprints."
She said the "highly unusual circumstances" of Mr Williams's death immediately raised the possibility of foul play, which had prompted "endless speculation".
But the coroner added that "taking all these shortfalls together, I am satisfied that the evidence is reliable and that we do not have to adjourn at this point".
Revelations that MI6 failed to raise the alarm about his disappearance for more than a week prompted elaborate conspiracy theories about his job and private life.
Several years before his death, Mr Williams tied himself to his bed and had to be cut free by his landlord and landlady.
It also emerged that the bachelor stored STG20,000 ($A31,500)-worth of women's clothes in his immaculate flat and was fascinated by drag queens.
But Dr Wilcox said there was no evidence to suggest the spy was a transvestite "or interested in any such thing".
The make-up found in his flat was more likely to reflect his interest in fashion, she argued.
And the wigs that were found there were "far more consistent with dress-up such as attendance at a manga conference", she added.
There was some suggestion that his interest in female footwear could have been of a sexual nature, but this was not unusual, Dr Wilcox observed.
"Gareth was naked in a bag when he was found, not cross-dressed, not in high-heeled shoes," she said.
Mr Williams would have been unlikely to invite a third party who was not a family member into his home, Dr Wilcox said, 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."
If someone else was there without having been invited, "that raises the possibility of an illegitimate purpose on the third party's part", she said.
"Gareth may have worked out a technique how to get into the bag and lock it from inside, but I find it extremely unlikely that he did so."
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".
© 2012 AAP
May 3, 2012
MI6 code breaker Gareth Williams was probably killed but the "spy in the bag" case might never be solved after mistakes by investigators, an inquest has heard.
Mr Williams's relatives attacked failures by secret services and police after a coroner ruled "many agencies fell short" in their investigation of the holdall death riddle.
Fiona Wilcox said she was sure a third party locked the 31-year-old mathematics prodigy inside the red holdall, probably while he was still alive.
She criticised the 21-month investigation, saying it was unlikely the mystery "will ever be satisfactorily explained".
"The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated," she said during a two-hour narrative verdict at Mr Williams's inquest.
"I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully."
As the eight-day hearing ended, relatives spoke out for the first time about their grief being "exacerbated" by MI6's "reluctance and failure" to assist the police inquiry.
In a statement read out by their solicitor, they said they were "extremely disappointed" at "total inadequacies" in the inquiry.
Scotland Yard vowed to explore new evidence that has come to light, while Sir John Sawers, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, apologised "unreservedly" for delays in raising the alarm about the death.
Mr Williams, a fitness enthusiast originally from Anglesey, North Wales, was found naked, curled up in the padlocked holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London, on August 23 2010.
Pathologists said he would have suffocated within three minutes if he was alive when he got inside the 80 centimetres by 48 centimetres bag.
The coroner agreed that Mr Williams was suffocated by carbon dioxide, possibly as an onset of a short-acting poison.
She dismissed speculation that Mr Williams died as a result of some kind of "auto-erotic activity", also denying there was any evidence to suggest claustrophilia - the love of enclosed spaces - was of any interest to him.
His sister, Ceri Subbe, looked on as Dr Wilcox told a packed Westminster Coroner's Court that it "remained a legitimate line of inquiry" that the secret services may have been involved in the death.
But she said "there was no evidence to support" that he died at the hands of spies.
Despite a 21-month police inquiry and seven days of evidence, "most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered", she said.
Dr Wilcox said several factors hampered inquiries, including breakdowns in communication by her own coroner's office, a DNA mix-up by forensics and the late submission of evidence by MI6 to police.
She went on to question why details of Mr Williams's private life were leaked to the press.
The coroner ruled out Mr Williams's interest in bondage and drag queens as having any bearing on the death, before adding: "I wonder if this was an attempt by some third party to manipulate the evidence."
The lack of hand and footprints in the bathroom was "significant", Dr Wilcox said, telling the court: "In relation to the prints found within the bathroom, in my view what was more significant was what was not found rather than what was found."
Dr Wilcox found it "highly unlikely" that Mr Williams died alone, saying: "If Gareth had been carrying out some kind of peculiar experiment, he wouldn't care if he left any foot or fingerprints."
She said the "highly unusual circumstances" of Mr Williams's death immediately raised the possibility of foul play, which had prompted "endless speculation".
But the coroner added that "taking all these shortfalls together, I am satisfied that the evidence is reliable and that we do not have to adjourn at this point".
Revelations that MI6 failed to raise the alarm about his disappearance for more than a week prompted elaborate conspiracy theories about his job and private life.
Several years before his death, Mr Williams tied himself to his bed and had to be cut free by his landlord and landlady.
It also emerged that the bachelor stored STG20,000 ($A31,500)-worth of women's clothes in his immaculate flat and was fascinated by drag queens.
But Dr Wilcox said there was no evidence to suggest the spy was a transvestite "or interested in any such thing".
The make-up found in his flat was more likely to reflect his interest in fashion, she argued.
And the wigs that were found there were "far more consistent with dress-up such as attendance at a manga conference", she added.
There was some suggestion that his interest in female footwear could have been of a sexual nature, but this was not unusual, Dr Wilcox observed.
"Gareth was naked in a bag when he was found, not cross-dressed, not in high-heeled shoes," she said.
Mr Williams would have been unlikely to invite a third party who was not a family member into his home, Dr Wilcox said, 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."
If someone else was there without having been invited, "that raises the possibility of an illegitimate purpose on the third party's part", she said.
"Gareth may have worked out a technique how to get into the bag and lock it from inside, but I find it extremely unlikely that he did so."
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".
© 2012 AAP
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by Winter Patriot
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Sky (Au) : Death of spy 'may never be explained'
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Death of spy 'may never be explained'
May 3, 2012
It is unlikely the death of a British spy whose naked body was found padlocked in a bag in his bath will ever be fully explained, the coroner told the final day of his inquest.
Coroner Fiona Wilcox said on Wednesday it was 'unlikely' the circumstances of Gareth Williams' 2010 death 'will ever be satisfactorily explained' given that 'most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered'.
Wilcox said she did not have enough evidence to give a verdict of unlawful killing in the death of Williams, a high-flying codebreaker with the MI6 external intelligence agency, despite a plea from his family's lawyer.
She will instead deliver a narrative verdict, listing the possibilities but failing to reach a conclusion?
Williams' family have previously said they believe secret agents versed in the 'dark arts' tried to cover up his death, while the detective heading the investigation said Tuesday she was convinced someone else was involved.
'My strongest belief is that a third party was involved and I would ask people to search their consciences and come to us to find some resolutions to this case and some peace for his family,' Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire said.
The inquest looked into whether Williams could have padlocked himself in the bag alone, after speculation he might have done so as part of a sex game, but one expert said even escapologist Harry Houdini 'would have struggled' to pull off the feat.
Pathologists said Williams likely died from poisoning or suffocation, but decomposition of his body reduced the scope for pinpointing the cause of death.
The spy's employers at MI6 failed to report him missing for a week, the inquest has heard.
Police also told the inquest they had not examined some of Williams' possessions including nine memory sticks because his bosses at MI6 said they were irrelevant.
Police found women's clothing worth about STG20,000 ($A31,545.74) in Williams' flat, while the inquest also heard he visited bondage sites, filmed himself nearly naked, and was once found tied to a bed.
His sister, Ceri Subbe, told the inquest Williams had been unhappy at MI6, where he was seconded from Britain's intelligence monitoring centre.
May 3, 2012
It is unlikely the death of a British spy whose naked body was found padlocked in a bag in his bath will ever be fully explained, the coroner told the final day of his inquest.
Coroner Fiona Wilcox said on Wednesday it was 'unlikely' the circumstances of Gareth Williams' 2010 death 'will ever be satisfactorily explained' given that 'most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered'.
Wilcox said she did not have enough evidence to give a verdict of unlawful killing in the death of Williams, a high-flying codebreaker with the MI6 external intelligence agency, despite a plea from his family's lawyer.
She will instead deliver a narrative verdict, listing the possibilities but failing to reach a conclusion?
Williams' family have previously said they believe secret agents versed in the 'dark arts' tried to cover up his death, while the detective heading the investigation said Tuesday she was convinced someone else was involved.
'My strongest belief is that a third party was involved and I would ask people to search their consciences and come to us to find some resolutions to this case and some peace for his family,' Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire said.
The inquest looked into whether Williams could have padlocked himself in the bag alone, after speculation he might have done so as part of a sex game, but one expert said even escapologist Harry Houdini 'would have struggled' to pull off the feat.
Pathologists said Williams likely died from poisoning or suffocation, but decomposition of his body reduced the scope for pinpointing the cause of death.
The spy's employers at MI6 failed to report him missing for a week, the inquest has heard.
Police also told the inquest they had not examined some of Williams' possessions including nine memory sticks because his bosses at MI6 said they were irrelevant.
Police found women's clothing worth about STG20,000 ($A31,545.74) in Williams' flat, while the inquest also heard he visited bondage sites, filmed himself nearly naked, and was once found tied to a bed.
His sister, Ceri Subbe, told the inquest Williams had been unhappy at MI6, where he was seconded from Britain's intelligence monitoring centre.
Filed under
bondage,
Ceri Subbe,
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dark arts,
Fiona Wilcox,
Houdini,
Jackie Sebire
by Winter Patriot
on Thursday, May 03, 2012 |
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Taranaki Daily News (NZ) : Naked spy in bag 'likely slain by mystery killer'
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Naked spy in bag 'likely slain by mystery killer'
Paisley Dodds | May 3, 2012
Even after a coroner's verdict, it remains a mystery: A naked spy found dead in a locked bag, lurid details of a kinky sex life and allegations that someone in Britain's spy agencies may have been involved in his death.
A British coroner ruled overnight (NZ time) that another person was likely involved in Gareth Williams' death — a finding that puts more pressure police to uncover the cyberwarfare expert's killer and continue to investigate possibilities that include whether he could have died in a sex game gone awry or in a more sinister scenario that involved his counterterrorism work.
In Britain, coroners are asked to investigate unexplained deaths, and their findings can often carry weight as police investigations proceed.
Although Coroner Fiona Wilcox said it was unlikely that the death of Williams, 31, will ever be "satisfactorily explained," she said the spy was likely killed either by suffocation or poisoning in a "criminally meditated act." She also said it was possible that someone from one of Britain's spy agencies was involved.
Williams, described as an introverted math genius, worked for Britain's secret eavesdropping service GCHQ. But he was attached to the MI6 foreign spy agency when his remains were found in the bathtub at his London apartment on August 16, 2010, just a few days after returning from a trip to the United States.
Forensic experts found some 20,000 pounds (NZ$39,965) worth of luxury women's clothing, shoes and wigs in his apartment. Police also discovered that he had visited bondage and sadomasochism websites, including some related to claustrophilia — a desire for confinement in enclosed spaces.
William's landlord testified during the coroner's hearing that she once found him handcuffed to his bed. She said he had appeared embarrassed after asking for help.
Still, Wilcox said there was no immediate evidence of a sexual encounter gone wrong, of suicidal intent, or that Williams' death was linked to a supposed interest in bondage. She said, however, that tales about his sex life could have been fuelled in an attempt to "manipulate the evidence."
In the past, spy recruits were often cautioned that their sex lives could make them vulnerable to blackmail.
The case has frustrated Scotland Yard detectives who have been investigating the case for 21 months now and say that the secrecy surrounding Williams' job has thwarted their efforts.
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"Obviously a lot of information has come out through the course of this inquest which we have not been party to," lead detective Jackie Sebire said.
But Wilcox also criticised the police detectives.
Time and resources were wasted, she said, when forensic teams investigating a DNA sample taken from Williams's hand later turned out to belong to one of the forensic scientists. She also questioned the handling of William's iPhone, which contained deleted images of him naked in a pair of boots.
Detective Superintendent Michael Broster, who was the police liason with MI6, said he had seized it from the spy's workplace and kept it until the next day when he gave it to another officer.
"I find this is either not what occurred ... or it demonstrates disregard for the rules governing continuity of evidence," Wilcox said.
Wilcox also criticised officers who interviewed Williams' colleagues without taking any formal statements.
"I find that this did affect the quality of evidence that was heard before this court," she said.
Still, the coroner said she had seen no evidence to indicate his death was linked to his work.
When the case emerged, some had speculated that he could have been the target of Russian criminal gangs or an al Qaeda extremist. Other media reports had said there had been a break-in at the property where he lived — a building sometimes used by MI6 to house its agents.
Wilcox said while there wasn't evidence to support a specific verdict of unlawful killing — which would need a high burden of proof — it was her opinion that the spy was probably unlawfully killed.
She said while it appeared unlikely, speculation that British intelligence agencies may have had a role in the death continued to be a "legitimate line of inquiry."
MI6 waited a week to investigate why Williams hadn't shown up for work — a delay that made it difficult for Williams' family to identify his badly decomposed body.
John Sawers, the head of MI6, said in a statement following the corner's verdict that he apologised "unreservedly" to the Williams family for the spy agency's failure.
During the coroner's hearing, MI6 accepted that Williams disliked the agency's boozy culture of post-work drinking and tedious bureaucracy, and had requested to return to his job at GCHQ.
One MI6 officer claimed that Williams hadn't been reported as missing because colleagues assumed he was preparing for his return to the southern England headquarters of the eavesdropping service.
Wilcox said it appeared unlikely that Williams could have climbed inside the duffel bag and locked it himself. Two different specialists attempted to recreate the feat without success. Williams was discovered in the foetal position inside the bag with two keys to the bag's padlock underneath his buttocks.
Pathologists told the inquest that poisoning or asphyxiation may have killed Williams, but said his cadaver was too badly decomposed to be certain.
Williams' family, who have been left distraught by parts of the inquest, did not speak outside court but offered a statement.
The family, from Wales, described Williams as a "special and adored son and brother" and said they "cannot describe the depth of the sorrow his absence leaves in our lives."
The police investigating is ongoing.
- AP
Paisley Dodds | May 3, 2012
Even after a coroner's verdict, it remains a mystery: A naked spy found dead in a locked bag, lurid details of a kinky sex life and allegations that someone in Britain's spy agencies may have been involved in his death.
A British coroner ruled overnight (NZ time) that another person was likely involved in Gareth Williams' death — a finding that puts more pressure police to uncover the cyberwarfare expert's killer and continue to investigate possibilities that include whether he could have died in a sex game gone awry or in a more sinister scenario that involved his counterterrorism work.
In Britain, coroners are asked to investigate unexplained deaths, and their findings can often carry weight as police investigations proceed.
Although Coroner Fiona Wilcox said it was unlikely that the death of Williams, 31, will ever be "satisfactorily explained," she said the spy was likely killed either by suffocation or poisoning in a "criminally meditated act." She also said it was possible that someone from one of Britain's spy agencies was involved.
Williams, described as an introverted math genius, worked for Britain's secret eavesdropping service GCHQ. But he was attached to the MI6 foreign spy agency when his remains were found in the bathtub at his London apartment on August 16, 2010, just a few days after returning from a trip to the United States.
Forensic experts found some 20,000 pounds (NZ$39,965) worth of luxury women's clothing, shoes and wigs in his apartment. Police also discovered that he had visited bondage and sadomasochism websites, including some related to claustrophilia — a desire for confinement in enclosed spaces.
William's landlord testified during the coroner's hearing that she once found him handcuffed to his bed. She said he had appeared embarrassed after asking for help.
Still, Wilcox said there was no immediate evidence of a sexual encounter gone wrong, of suicidal intent, or that Williams' death was linked to a supposed interest in bondage. She said, however, that tales about his sex life could have been fuelled in an attempt to "manipulate the evidence."
In the past, spy recruits were often cautioned that their sex lives could make them vulnerable to blackmail.
The case has frustrated Scotland Yard detectives who have been investigating the case for 21 months now and say that the secrecy surrounding Williams' job has thwarted their efforts.
Ad Feedback
"Obviously a lot of information has come out through the course of this inquest which we have not been party to," lead detective Jackie Sebire said.
But Wilcox also criticised the police detectives.
Time and resources were wasted, she said, when forensic teams investigating a DNA sample taken from Williams's hand later turned out to belong to one of the forensic scientists. She also questioned the handling of William's iPhone, which contained deleted images of him naked in a pair of boots.
Detective Superintendent Michael Broster, who was the police liason with MI6, said he had seized it from the spy's workplace and kept it until the next day when he gave it to another officer.
"I find this is either not what occurred ... or it demonstrates disregard for the rules governing continuity of evidence," Wilcox said.
Wilcox also criticised officers who interviewed Williams' colleagues without taking any formal statements.
"I find that this did affect the quality of evidence that was heard before this court," she said.
Still, the coroner said she had seen no evidence to indicate his death was linked to his work.
When the case emerged, some had speculated that he could have been the target of Russian criminal gangs or an al Qaeda extremist. Other media reports had said there had been a break-in at the property where he lived — a building sometimes used by MI6 to house its agents.
Wilcox said while there wasn't evidence to support a specific verdict of unlawful killing — which would need a high burden of proof — it was her opinion that the spy was probably unlawfully killed.
She said while it appeared unlikely, speculation that British intelligence agencies may have had a role in the death continued to be a "legitimate line of inquiry."
MI6 waited a week to investigate why Williams hadn't shown up for work — a delay that made it difficult for Williams' family to identify his badly decomposed body.
John Sawers, the head of MI6, said in a statement following the corner's verdict that he apologised "unreservedly" to the Williams family for the spy agency's failure.
During the coroner's hearing, MI6 accepted that Williams disliked the agency's boozy culture of post-work drinking and tedious bureaucracy, and had requested to return to his job at GCHQ.
One MI6 officer claimed that Williams hadn't been reported as missing because colleagues assumed he was preparing for his return to the southern England headquarters of the eavesdropping service.
Wilcox said it appeared unlikely that Williams could have climbed inside the duffel bag and locked it himself. Two different specialists attempted to recreate the feat without success. Williams was discovered in the foetal position inside the bag with two keys to the bag's padlock underneath his buttocks.
Pathologists told the inquest that poisoning or asphyxiation may have killed Williams, but said his cadaver was too badly decomposed to be certain.
Williams' family, who have been left distraught by parts of the inquest, did not speak outside court but offered a statement.
The family, from Wales, described Williams as a "special and adored son and brother" and said they "cannot describe the depth of the sorrow his absence leaves in our lives."
The police investigating is ongoing.
- AP
Filed under
asphyxiation,
blackmail,
bondage,
break-in,
claustrophilia,
clothing,
DNA,
Fiona Wilcox,
foetal,
iPhone,
Jackie Sebire,
poisoning,
shoes,
Sir John Sawers,
wigs
by Winter Patriot
on Thursday, May 03, 2012 |
link |
email |
TSWKTM home |
SHATASM home |
WP home
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