NYT : Foul Play Ruled Likely in Case of Spy Found Dead in Bag

Foul Play Ruled Likely in Case of Spy Found Dead in Bag

By JOHN F. BURNS | May 2, 2012

LONDON — Deepening the mystery surrounding the death of a reclusive MI6 agent found doubled up inside a padlocked duffel bag in his London flat, a coroner said on Wednesday that it was unlikely that the case would ever be solved, but that the “balance of probabilities” suggested that he had been unlawfully killed. Scotland Yard reacted immediately by saying it would continue its efforts to hunt down the killer.

After an eight-day inquest that has thrown an uncomfortable spotlight on MI6, Britain’s secret intelligence service, the coroner, Dr. Fiona Wilcox, said the death of Gareth Williams, 31, a Welsh-born mathematician involved in top-secret code-breaking work, appeared to have been “unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated,” — a phrase that legal experts said meant that he was either killed, that someone assisted in a suicide plot or that somebody fled after a sex game went wrong.

Dr. Wilcox said she was “satisfied” that some “third party” had been involved in getting Mr. Williams into the bag, probably while he was alive. This person, she said, probably then locked the bag and carried it to the empty bathtub in the government-owned apartment in the upscale district of Pimlico, where the body was discovered a week after Mr. Williams died.

Dr. Wilcox noted that three pathologists working separately had been unable to determine, because of the body’s decomposition, whether Mr. Williams was poisoned or asphyxiated. She described other evidence as being inconclusive to the point that it was unlikely that the mystery “would ever be satisfactorily explained.”

Still, she said, she was “satisfied that on the balance of probabilities Gareth was killed unlawfully.” The conclusion seemed certain to give fresh currency to conspiracy theories, including some that attribute the death to Russian secret service agents or to militants from Al Qaeda.

The coroner said that it remained a “legitimate line of inquiry” whether MI6 or other secret agencies were involved in the death. She criticized MI6 for what she called its shortfalls in handling the case, including a delay of a week by Mr. Williams’s MI6 manager in reporting that he was missing from work. Pathologists said their work was impeded by the delay, which resulted in such advanced decomposition that they were unable to obtain any decisive forensic clues.

Dr. Wilcox played down suggestions that facets of Mr. Williams’s private life had led to his death, including his interest in bondage Web sites, cross-dressing, transvestite performances and what were described at the hearing as “autoerotic experiences,” specifically a condition known as claustrophilia, involving sexual thrills from being confined in enclosed spaces.

Dr. Wilcox also said she was disinclined to believe that Mr. Williams had committed suicide, a theory encouraged by a newspaper clipping found in his flat that canvassed the most common regrets that people have on their deathbeds. She said he had shown no other signs of depression. As for his purported interest in bondage, she said, she would have expected more than the four visits to bondage sites that were traced on his computers.

As for the $30,000 in high-fashion women’s clothing and shoes found in his flat, and a bright orange woman’s wig, Dr. Wilcox said this was more likely to reflect the interest in fashion he showed by attending a six-week fashion course, and his liking of manga parties, a pastime borrowed from Japan that involves wearing extravagant costumes.

The case has been an awkward experience not only for MI6 but also for an associated agency that was Mr. Williams’s primary employer, the Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s principal electronic surveillance and code-breaking center. After 10 years working at the unit’s base outside London, Mr. Williams was on a three-year transfer to MI6’s London headquarters, working on the application of new code-breaking technologies, when he died. But it was the MI6 chief, John Sawers, who attended Mr. Williams’s funeral and who delivered an unusual apology for the delay in reporting Mr. Williams missing that was read to the inquest by an MI6 lawyer.

A version of this article appeared in print on May 3, 2012, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Foul Play Ruled Likely In Case of Spy Found Dead.