MI6 spy Gareth Williams was ‘killed by Russia for refusing to become double agent’, former KGB man claims
Defector Boris Karpichkov claims Russia had a secret agent in GCHQ and Williams knew who it was
Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith | September 28, 2015
The MI6 spy who was found dead in a padlocked holdall in his bath in Pimlico was “exterminated” by Russia’s SVR because he refused to become a double agent and knew the identity of a Russian spy working inside GCHQ, it has been claimed.
Codebreaker Gareth Williams was found dead at his home in 2010. He had been a cipher expert at GCHQ but was on secondment to MI6 when he died.
According to the coroner at the subsequent inquest, his death was likely a “criminally mediated” unlawful killing, though it was “unlikely” to be satisfactorily explained. Police investigating Williams’ death suggested he had died as the result of a sex game gone wrong.
But defector Boris Karpichkov, 56, claims intelligence sources in Russia have admitted the MI6 spy was killed by the SVR, the current incarnation of the country’s espionage agency, formerly known as the KGB.
Speaking to the Daily Mirror, Karpichkov claimed the SVR attempted to recruit Williams as a double agent, allegedly using details from the British cypher’s private life as leverage.
Police disclosed at the time of Williams’ death that he owned £15,000 worth of women’s designer clothing, a wig and make up. It had been suggested that Williams dressed as a woman outside of work, though a forensics expert has since said they believe the spy likely worked undercover as a woman.
Karpichkov, who is ex-KGB, claims the SVR threatened to reveal the Briton was a transvestite, before Williams in turn revealed he knew the identity of the person who had “tipped the Russians off” about him.
“The SVR then had no alternative but to exterminate him in order to protect their agent inside GCHQ,” he alleged.
Karpichkov, who also lives in the Pimlico area, said he had seen Russian diplomatic cars in the area around the time of Williams’ death but had believed they had been sent to monitor himself. He claims to have not seen the cars since Williams died.
Karpichkov has also claimed that Williams was killed by an untraceable poison which was pushed into his ear using a needleless syringe.
At the time of the inquiry the coroner said that the involvement of intelligence services in Williams’ death remained a “legitimate line of inquiry” but stressed “there was no evidence to support that he died at the hands” of a government agency.
Independent : MI6 spy Gareth Williams was ‘killed by Russia for refusing to become double agent’, former KGB man claims
Monday, September 28, 2015
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Western Daily Press : Author Frederick Forsyth says doctor found man in holdall was clearly murdered
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Author Frederick Forsyth says doctor found man in holdall was clearly murdered
Western Daily Press | September 26, 2015
Best-selling author and self-confessed former MI6 operative Frederick Forsyth says he believes former GCHQ worker Gareth Williams' death was "clearly murder".
The author, famous for thrillers including The Day of The Jackal, The Odessa File and Dogs of War, spoke to the Western Daily Press' sister paper the Gloucestershire Echo in an interview ahead of his appearance at Cheltenham Literature Festival next Friday.
The death of Dr Williams, 31, divided opinion after conflicting conclusions were drawn by the coroner and Scotland Yard.
The naked body of the codes and ciphers expert was found in a padlocked holdall in the bath of his top-floor flat in Pimlico, central London, on August, 23, 2010.
Agreeing that the unresolved case bore similarities to a fictional plot, Frederick Forsyth said: "It might have been, because obviously it was weird, and inexplicable, and I don't think we ever got to the bottom of it properly and we never will now.
"And occasionally murders, and it was clearly murder I think, but there are murders of course that are never ever solved and this may well be one."
Dr Williams, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, was due to return to Cheltenham the week after he died.
A coroner concluded that Dr Williams was probably unlawfully killed and his death the result of a criminal act following an eight-day inquest in 2012.
Westminster coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, said he was probably either suffocated or poisoned, before a third party locked and placed the bag in the bath. But Scotland Yard's three-year inquiry concluding in 2013 stated that Williams was "most probably" alone when he died.
Dr Williams, who rented a flat in Bouncers Lane, in Cheltenham, for many years, was originally from North Wales.
His family have said they believed the coroner's view "accurately reflects" the circumstances of Gareth's death.
Mr Forsyth also spoke about his recent admission that he was an agent for the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, in the past, saying: "Well, it's called asset or agent but really it's errand runner. I just ran a few errands, that's all."
Mr Forsyth will make a rare appearance at Cheltenham Literature Festival next Friday, October 2.
Western Daily Press | September 26, 2015
Best-selling author and self-confessed former MI6 operative Frederick Forsyth says he believes former GCHQ worker Gareth Williams' death was "clearly murder".
The author, famous for thrillers including The Day of The Jackal, The Odessa File and Dogs of War, spoke to the Western Daily Press' sister paper the Gloucestershire Echo in an interview ahead of his appearance at Cheltenham Literature Festival next Friday.
The death of Dr Williams, 31, divided opinion after conflicting conclusions were drawn by the coroner and Scotland Yard.
The naked body of the codes and ciphers expert was found in a padlocked holdall in the bath of his top-floor flat in Pimlico, central London, on August, 23, 2010.
Agreeing that the unresolved case bore similarities to a fictional plot, Frederick Forsyth said: "It might have been, because obviously it was weird, and inexplicable, and I don't think we ever got to the bottom of it properly and we never will now.
"And occasionally murders, and it was clearly murder I think, but there are murders of course that are never ever solved and this may well be one."
Dr Williams, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, was due to return to Cheltenham the week after he died.
A coroner concluded that Dr Williams was probably unlawfully killed and his death the result of a criminal act following an eight-day inquest in 2012.
Westminster coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, said he was probably either suffocated or poisoned, before a third party locked and placed the bag in the bath. But Scotland Yard's three-year inquiry concluding in 2013 stated that Williams was "most probably" alone when he died.
Dr Williams, who rented a flat in Bouncers Lane, in Cheltenham, for many years, was originally from North Wales.
His family have said they believed the coroner's view "accurately reflects" the circumstances of Gareth's death.
Mr Forsyth also spoke about his recent admission that he was an agent for the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, in the past, saying: "Well, it's called asset or agent but really it's errand runner. I just ran a few errands, that's all."
Mr Forsyth will make a rare appearance at Cheltenham Literature Festival next Friday, October 2.
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Whaat's New UK : Russia ‘has spy in GCHQ and body-in-bag MI6 victim Gareth Williams was killed to protect their identity’
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Russia ‘has spy in GCHQ and body-in-bag MI6 victim Gareth Williams was killed to protect their identity’
Par Mirror - UK News | September 26, 2015
A Russian spy infiltrated into Britain’s top secret GCHQ base is passing secrets to Moscow, a former major in the KGB says.
Defector Boris Karpichkov claims to have has new evidence backing his dramatic claim that body-in-a-bag victim Gareth Williams was murdered because he knew the Russian mole’s identity.
Maths genius and GCHQ codebreaker Williams, 31, was found dead, padlocked inside a holdall in the bath at his London home in August 2010.
At the time of his death he was on secondment to MI6.
Karpichkov, 56, who by coincidence lived near Williams’ flat in Pimlico, south London, has been investigating the mysterious death ever since.
According to him, Moscow intelligence sources have confirmed that the Briton was murdered by the SVR, the KGB’s successor, after a blackmail attempt failed.
The Russians had hoped to recruit Williams as a double agent in an operation codenamed Sweetie.
Moscow agents had discovered the spy’s fondness for cross-dressing and were threatening to reveal his secret unkless he co-operated.
An inquest into his death heard that £20,000 worth of women’s clothing was found at his flat.
Karpichkov believes Williams signed his own death warrant by defying the blackmail attempt.
He told the Sunday People : “Williams did not break down when confronted.
“But he recklessly said he knew the person who had tipped the Russians off about him.
“The SVR then had no alternative but to exterminate him in order to protect their agent inside GCHQ.”
The SVR had kept Williams under intensive surveillance to gather “compromising material” on him after their GCHQ mole alerted them that his private live activities while at the communications and intelligence base in Cheltenham made him ripe for recruitment.
Russian spymasters had already put Karpichkov under a death sentence after he escaped to Britain 17 years ago – carrying two suitcases full of secrets.
The ex-KGB man noticed Russian diplomatic cars loitering in the Pimlico area of London in the days leading up to Williams’ death and had made notes their numbers.
Mistakenly, he became convinced the Russian surveillance was aimed at him and that a hit squad was on its way to kill him.
Only after the death of Williams did he he realise the cars were actually there to monitor the MI6 operative.
Karpichkov recalled: “I had never seen those cars before – and I never saw them again.”
The ex-KGB man claims that Williams was killed by pushing a needleless syringe containing untraceable poison into his ear.
He was then bundled into the bag because his murderers could not dispose of the body.
Karpichkov says an SVR clean-up team later returned to William’s flat through a skylight and removed any remaining incriminating evidence.
Although the 2012 inquest said the death of Williams was “likely to have been criminally meditated” a subsequent police investigation came to the conclusion it was an accident.
They decided Williams had suffocated when a sex game went disastrously wrong.
Karpichkov believes different – and added: “As far as I know the mole is still operating inside GCHQ.”
There is a long history of British secrets being handed to Russia – often by UK traitors, writes Harriet Clugston.
Art expert Sir Anthony Blunt, one of the Cambridge Spy Ring, was exposed in 1979.
He may have recruited other spies, including Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean.
Double agent Kim Philby worked for the KGB and headed MI6’s anti-Soviet section. He defected in 1963.
Geoffrey Prime served 18 years in jail after spying for the Soviet Union while working at GCHQ in the 1970s.
Par Mirror - UK News | September 26, 2015
A Russian spy infiltrated into Britain’s top secret GCHQ base is passing secrets to Moscow, a former major in the KGB says.
Defector Boris Karpichkov claims to have has new evidence backing his dramatic claim that body-in-a-bag victim Gareth Williams was murdered because he knew the Russian mole’s identity.
Maths genius and GCHQ codebreaker Williams, 31, was found dead, padlocked inside a holdall in the bath at his London home in August 2010.
At the time of his death he was on secondment to MI6.
Karpichkov, 56, who by coincidence lived near Williams’ flat in Pimlico, south London, has been investigating the mysterious death ever since.
According to him, Moscow intelligence sources have confirmed that the Briton was murdered by the SVR, the KGB’s successor, after a blackmail attempt failed.
The Russians had hoped to recruit Williams as a double agent in an operation codenamed Sweetie.
Moscow agents had discovered the spy’s fondness for cross-dressing and were threatening to reveal his secret unkless he co-operated.
An inquest into his death heard that £20,000 worth of women’s clothing was found at his flat.
Karpichkov believes Williams signed his own death warrant by defying the blackmail attempt.
He told the Sunday People : “Williams did not break down when confronted.
“But he recklessly said he knew the person who had tipped the Russians off about him.
“The SVR then had no alternative but to exterminate him in order to protect their agent inside GCHQ.”
The SVR had kept Williams under intensive surveillance to gather “compromising material” on him after their GCHQ mole alerted them that his private live activities while at the communications and intelligence base in Cheltenham made him ripe for recruitment.
Russian spymasters had already put Karpichkov under a death sentence after he escaped to Britain 17 years ago – carrying two suitcases full of secrets.
The ex-KGB man noticed Russian diplomatic cars loitering in the Pimlico area of London in the days leading up to Williams’ death and had made notes their numbers.
Mistakenly, he became convinced the Russian surveillance was aimed at him and that a hit squad was on its way to kill him.
Only after the death of Williams did he he realise the cars were actually there to monitor the MI6 operative.
Karpichkov recalled: “I had never seen those cars before – and I never saw them again.”
The ex-KGB man claims that Williams was killed by pushing a needleless syringe containing untraceable poison into his ear.
He was then bundled into the bag because his murderers could not dispose of the body.
Karpichkov says an SVR clean-up team later returned to William’s flat through a skylight and removed any remaining incriminating evidence.
Although the 2012 inquest said the death of Williams was “likely to have been criminally meditated” a subsequent police investigation came to the conclusion it was an accident.
They decided Williams had suffocated when a sex game went disastrously wrong.
Karpichkov believes different – and added: “As far as I know the mole is still operating inside GCHQ.”
There is a long history of British secrets being handed to Russia – often by UK traitors, writes Harriet Clugston.
Art expert Sir Anthony Blunt, one of the Cambridge Spy Ring, was exposed in 1979.
He may have recruited other spies, including Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean.
Double agent Kim Philby worked for the KGB and headed MI6’s anti-Soviet section. He defected in 1963.
Geoffrey Prime served 18 years in jail after spying for the Soviet Union while working at GCHQ in the 1970s.
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Mirror : Russia 'has spy in GCHQ and body-in-bag MI6 victim Gareth Williams was killed to protect their identity'
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Russia 'has spy in GCHQ and body-in-bag MI6 victim Gareth Williams was killed to protect their identity'
Defector and former KGB major Boris Karpichkov claims to have new evidence that the maths genius was murdered to protect Russia's mole
By Nigel Nelson | September 26, 2015
A Russian spy who infiltrated Britain's top secret GCHQ base is passing secrets to Moscow, a former major in the KGB says.
Defector Boris Karpichkov claims to have new evidence backing his dramatic claim that body-in-a-bag victim Gareth Williams was murdered because he knew the Russian mole's identity.
Maths genius and GCHQ codebreaker Williams, 31, was found dead, padlocked inside a holdall in the bath at his London home in August 2010.
At the time of his death he was on secondment to MI6.
Karpichkov, 56, who by coincidence lived near Williams' flat in Pimlico, south London, has been investigating the mysterious death ever since.
According to him, Moscow intelligence sources have confirmed that the Briton was murdered by the SVR, the KGB's successor, after a blackmail attempt failed.
The Russians had hoped to recruit Williams as a double agent in an operation codenamed Sweetie.
Moscow agents had discovered the spy's fondness for cross dressing and were threatening to reveal his secret unless he co-operated.
An inquest into his death heard how £20,000 worth of women's clothing was found at his flat.
Karpichkov believes Williams signed his own death warrant by defying the blackmail attempt.
He said: "Williams did not break down when confronted.
"But he recklessly said he knew the person who had tipped the Russians off about him.
"The SVR then had no alternative but to exterminate him in order to protect their agent inside GCHQ."
The SVR had kept Williams under intensive surveillance to gather "compromising material" on him after their GCHQ mole alerted them that his private life activities while at the communications and intelligence base in Cheltenham made him ripe for recruitment.
Russian spymasters had already put Karpichkov under a death sentence after he escaped to Britain 17 years ago - carrying two suitcases full of secrets.
The ex-KGB man noticed Russian diplomatic cars loitering in the Pimlico area of London in the days leading up to Williams' death and had made notes of their numbers.
Mistakenly, he became convinced that the Russian surveillance was aimed at him and that a hit squad was on its way to kill him.
Only after the death of Williams did he he realise the cars were actually there to monitor the MI6 operative.
Karpichkov recalled: "I had never seen those cars before - and I never saw them again."
The ex-KGB man claims that Williams was killed by pushing a needleless syringe containing untraceable poison into his ear.
He was then bundled into the bag because his murderers could not dispose of the body.
Karpichkov says an SVR clean-up team later returned to Williams' flat through a skylight and removed any remaining incriminating evidence.
Although the 2012 inquest said the death of Williams was "likely to have been criminally meditated" a subsequent police investigation came to the conclusion it was an accident.
They decided Williams had suffocated when a sex game went disastrously wrong.
Karpichkov believes different - and added: "As far as I know the mole is still operating inside GCHQ."
Defector and former KGB major Boris Karpichkov claims to have new evidence that the maths genius was murdered to protect Russia's mole
By Nigel Nelson | September 26, 2015
A Russian spy who infiltrated Britain's top secret GCHQ base is passing secrets to Moscow, a former major in the KGB says.
Defector Boris Karpichkov claims to have new evidence backing his dramatic claim that body-in-a-bag victim Gareth Williams was murdered because he knew the Russian mole's identity.
Maths genius and GCHQ codebreaker Williams, 31, was found dead, padlocked inside a holdall in the bath at his London home in August 2010.
At the time of his death he was on secondment to MI6.
Karpichkov, 56, who by coincidence lived near Williams' flat in Pimlico, south London, has been investigating the mysterious death ever since.
According to him, Moscow intelligence sources have confirmed that the Briton was murdered by the SVR, the KGB's successor, after a blackmail attempt failed.
The Russians had hoped to recruit Williams as a double agent in an operation codenamed Sweetie.
Moscow agents had discovered the spy's fondness for cross dressing and were threatening to reveal his secret unless he co-operated.
An inquest into his death heard how £20,000 worth of women's clothing was found at his flat.
Karpichkov believes Williams signed his own death warrant by defying the blackmail attempt.
He said: "Williams did not break down when confronted.
"But he recklessly said he knew the person who had tipped the Russians off about him.
"The SVR then had no alternative but to exterminate him in order to protect their agent inside GCHQ."
The SVR had kept Williams under intensive surveillance to gather "compromising material" on him after their GCHQ mole alerted them that his private life activities while at the communications and intelligence base in Cheltenham made him ripe for recruitment.
Russian spymasters had already put Karpichkov under a death sentence after he escaped to Britain 17 years ago - carrying two suitcases full of secrets.
The ex-KGB man noticed Russian diplomatic cars loitering in the Pimlico area of London in the days leading up to Williams' death and had made notes of their numbers.
Mistakenly, he became convinced that the Russian surveillance was aimed at him and that a hit squad was on its way to kill him.
Only after the death of Williams did he he realise the cars were actually there to monitor the MI6 operative.
Karpichkov recalled: "I had never seen those cars before - and I never saw them again."
The ex-KGB man claims that Williams was killed by pushing a needleless syringe containing untraceable poison into his ear.
He was then bundled into the bag because his murderers could not dispose of the body.
Karpichkov says an SVR clean-up team later returned to Williams' flat through a skylight and removed any remaining incriminating evidence.
Although the 2012 inquest said the death of Williams was "likely to have been criminally meditated" a subsequent police investigation came to the conclusion it was an accident.
They decided Williams had suffocated when a sex game went disastrously wrong.
Karpichkov believes different - and added: "As far as I know the mole is still operating inside GCHQ."
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on Saturday, September 26, 2015 |
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Gloucestershire Echo : A life in Intrigue: Frederick Forsyth talks exclusively to GL Magazine
Saturday, September 26, 2015
A life in Intrigue: Frederick Forsyth talks exclusively to GL Magazine
By Corrie Bond-French | GL magazine | September 26, 2015
Pilot, journo, writer, spy. Four words, a line filched from Le Carre, and there you have it; a neat summation of nigh on eight decades of an extraordinary life and career, with an incendiary revelation fizzing away between the covers.
Except Frederick Forsyth, the novelist who lit thriller tinder when he first penned The Day of the Jackal back in the 1970s, doesn't consider his endeavours in subterfuge to be quite so dangerously revelatory anymore.
It is fascinating stuff, and the irony is not lost that he is visiting Cheltenham next Friday for an extremely rare foray into the Literature Festival landscape to talk about his memoirs in The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue, as GCHQ looms large in the background. "I don't do many," he tells me. "I'm notorious for it, but the reason for it is that I am naturally reclusive."
Frederick Forsyth needs little introduction. One of the world's best-known and best- selling writers, he has written some of the most instantly recognisable titles of recent times, and it's quite an oeuvre, including The Day of The Jackal, The Odessa File, Dogs of War and The Fourth Protocol for starters. Many have been made into hit films (Day of The Jackal launched Edward Fox's career and Michael Caine and other such acting luminaries have been happily available for roles). In short, Frederick's contribution to the world's bookshelves set the standard for meticulous research and plausible, realistic plot-lines.
His modus operandi is devastatingly effective: plots assembled with the precision of a Swiss pocket watch; characters and dialogue that linger convincingly long after the last page is turned and the cover dog-eared. It is possible to find oneself in Forsyth cold turkey. I have a cherished picture of my father and myself on holiday when I was 13. We are both in clover reading Forsyth. But he hadn't written that many books back then and we both read quickly. Cue the violins.
But the reason why his novels have endured in popularity for more than 45 years now, is because his cool, reportorial prose spins a convincing yarn; a yarn that unravels with unnerving authenticity. Frederick truly has been in the thick of it, with friends in high and low places and the occasional sleeping with the enemy thrown in for good measure.
Frederick's life story could trump any fictional tale, and lady luck has been a benevolent if not thoroughly indulgent mistress. If his life was a Bond film, she would slink up to him in the casino, kiss the dice and shake his cocktail (so to speak). As Frederick tells me, Bond is 'pure fantasy', but you get the picture. Lucky Frederick. Ergo lucky us.
And what a life he has had. Read on, and imagine you're in a bar, Frederick is beside you, taking a long drag on a Rothmans and regaling you with anecdote after anecdote: you'll have the book in a nutshell.
An academically gifted and, thanks to the prescience of his parents, multi-lingual only child, Frederick rejected the idea of a Cambridge education, opting instead to fulfil his dreams by becoming the youngest RAF fighter pilot at just 19.
He survived an horrific car crash at 20, his hand narrowly saved from amputation thanks to a fortuitously located retired surgeon, and his severed ear was reattached. His hearing was unaffected, but Frederick is no prize-winning golfer. And just as an aside, he also narrowly avoided being raped at knifepoint in Paris when he produced a larger knife, and he even had a stint as a trainee matador.
After earning his wings and completing the National Service he had chosen over that Cambridge degree, his desire to travel prompted his decision to train as a journalist. He earned his reporting chops on the Eastern Daily Press. Then luck struck again.
On what he thought a doomed attempt to get an interview in Fleet Street three years later, Frederick, disillusioned, sought solace in a bar, where a friendly chap struck up conversation. It transpired that he had trained at the same newspaper and knew Frederick's mentor well.
He immediately took young Frederick back to his place of work, which just so happened to be Reuters. Before the sun was over the yard arm they had sussed that Frederick was fluent in French, German and Spanish, and he found himself in Paris as Reuters' foreign correspondent at just 23 years old.
In Paris he covered the repeatedly unsuccessful assassination attempts on President Charles De Gaulle, and he found himself idly musing on the idea that perhaps a lone hitman would be a more successful option...
The following years were just as remarkable. His next move was to become Reuters man in East Berlin. At the height of the Cold War, Frederick was evading the Stasi past Checkpoint Charlie, whilst nearly triggering world war three, then occasionally sleeping with the enemy…
He went on to cover the Biafran War, falling out with the BBC and going freelance. He started writing to earn money, but when The Day of the Jackal hit the bookshelves, his fate as a writer was sealed. He now lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife Sandy, spending time with his two sons and grandchildren. Living, as he tells me, a simple and occasionally scruffy life.
"Basically it is. I spend most of my time around the house in canvas jeans and a farm work shirt, and sometimes I don't shave! Wow! No, I enjoy spending time here. Anyone thinking I've got to have caviar, nah! A ploughman's lunch at the Jolly Cricketers and I'm perfectly happy," said Frederick.
But, as revealing as this may be, it is remarkably only a couple of years since Frederick wrote The Kill List, when his unwavering perfectionism prompted a research trip to Mogadishu, Somalia. He was 75 at the time, and Sandy was not impressed. So did he miss the thrill and danger of it all?
"I didn't really miss it, that's too much. The last time I was, I suppose, in a dicey situation was writing The Kill List. I decided I had got to describe Mogadishu, Somalia and I read some stuff online but it was absolutely pathetic. It wasn't anything like what I knew what it must be, and I read some other writers who clearly hadn't been there. One could tell by just looking at what they had written about Mogadishu and Somalia generally, they just hadn't been there.
"So I said I'm going to have to go, and my wife Sandy said 'you're a damn fool, you're not the youth you used to be'. I said 'I'm 75, but on the other hand, I've got to go'. So I went. So that was that. There was a possibility of something happening there, but to say did I miss it? No, no. I've reached the stage now at 77 that I'm perfectly happy, to play with the grandchildren and take the Jack Russells for a walk. I don't really need to go into the weird situations anymore!" I venture that such a trip at 75 was still quite remarkable, and Frederick chuckles.
"She said if you ever do that again I'm going to sue you with Fiona Shackleton!"
Sandy can probably sleep more easily now, as Frederick has no plans to write another thriller.
"I said the last one would be my last novel. I still think it will be for a whole range of things. I haven't got any other stories that intrigue me, and also the complexity of technology nowadays in that world, the underworld, so to speak, is just baffling me. I can't even understand it. So the old days – and I almost said the good old days – when you had things like microfilm and you wrote things on paper, they're long gone. I think your spook today is just sitting there tapping things into a screen, which I can't find very dramatic!"
But there have been some baffling espionage-related cases in recent times that could be straight out of one of his books, such as the Litvinenko poisoning and the unexplained death of former GCHQ worker Gareth Williams, whose body was mysteriously found in a padlocked holdall in his bath five years ago. So was it foul play – reminiscent of a Forsyth-esque plot?
Frederick concedes: "It might have been, because obviously it was weird, and inexplicable, and I don't think we ever got to the bottom of it properly and we never will now. And occasionally murders, and it was clearly murder I think, but there are murders of course that are never ever solved and this may well be one."
So is his contacts book locked up safely in a vault now? Frederick laughs: "It's right in front of me – I'm staring at it!" Never say never, eh Frederick?
"I don't know about other writers, but I think we all have this in common: we need isolation to write. Some people are at their desk every day writing, then they re-write. I mean Jeffrey Archer does about 15 or 16 rewrites. I couldn't. That would drive me potty. I mean, to go all the way back to page one and start again? No! I just do one, meticulously careful, but just one copy and that goes to the editors. But I do prepare meticulously, I do the research over six months and then write over two. The only thing I don't have any more is deadlines.
"One of the things I like about it is that, unlike commerce for example where it's all about market share, you don't have to crush anybody else to be successful, it can be gentle. So if I see another young man having a blistering success I am delighted, because there's room."
And his admission in the book about his role as an asset for MI6 may well ruffle Whitehall feathers yet.
"Well, it's called asset or agent but really it's errand runner. I just ran a few errands, that's all," he tells me.
"A lot of people back then in the Cold War did, as I never cease to say, a lot of business men were approached. If you were going to a trade fair in a rather difficult to get at city, it was 'would you just do a little favour for us? If an envelope came under your hotel door would you put it in your attached case and bring it home?' And most said 'yeah, yeah'. It's why we had, or have, a brilliant intelligence service at a very cheap rate. The taxpayer is not being short-changed, believe me!"
Is he expecting any reprimand for his contra-Official Secrets Act admission?
"I may be rebuked yet! It's the big word isn't it? S.P.Y. The media, and I know you are of the media and it's like shoving heroin to a junkie, but it wasn't so spectacular. James Bond was a fantasy, and always will be a fantasy. The stuff that was really pretty much accurate the way it was, was the George Smiley stuff. But that came from David Cornwall (aka John Le Carre) of course who was in it, and now admitted belatedly that he was. But he was on the staff you see, I was never on the staff. I was just serving as a volunteer and occasionally, now and again.
"And again the phrase 'over twenty years'. It was four or five things over that span, just errands, favours. And the only reason that I felt that I would be allowed was because I didn't ask. There might be someone miffed down there that I broke the code. But I just think it's so far back and we've had so many released secrets now; the 30-year rule cabinet documents, private and very secret memos exchanged between Prime Ministers which were all released under the 30-year rule, and I'm talking 45 years ago. And you know, East Germany has gone, the Stasis have gone, the USSR has gone. Communism has gone, except in the Labour party!" he laughs.
"It was a different world, and I don't see how anybody could be endangered by some Boys' Own paper anecdotes of 45 years ago. I don't know, the professionals might say 'I shouldn't have told anybody anything', but then I do remember far enough back to when we never officially told anyone we had an intelligence service."
Frederick is hard-pushed to say which of his thrillers was the most enjoyable to write.
"Oh Lord, I can't recall, I really can't. But the most traumatic was the stuff in Biafra. That was at the other end of the scale because that did scar me. I was there two years in a hell hole situation and I watched many, many children die of starvation… a black and white picture in the paper or even on TV is not the same as being there. So Biafra was revelatory and horrible and to this day I can't forget it."
But, the horrors of conflict aside, Frederick happily acknowledges that he has had more than his fair share of good fortune.
"I had a wonderful childhood. My father was in his way a great man. He was just a shopkeeper, but a kind, decent man.
"I have had amazing luck. I have some outbreaks of ill luck, like when I foolishly entrusted the guardianship of all my life savings to a man I thought was a friend, who turned out to be a conman and a swindler, and he embezzled all of my life savings going back to zero at the age of 50, and I had to start all over again... but most of my luck has been the other way, it's been good.
"I look back with great gratitude, but I don't quite know who to thank! I'm not a great believer but I will have to make my mind up soon; I may have to meet him!"
Frederick reads mostly non-fiction, and he finds the last 50 years the most interesting time to read about. He reckons more change occurred within the last 50 years than in the previous 200. It has been an interesting time to live through.
And he is still bemused that his creation of The Jackal has passed into common-parlance for hit men when the Venezuelan assassin Carlos the Jackal was exposed and later caught.
"I was asked 'why did you name him (The Jackal) after Carlos?' And I went pink 'I didn't! The press named Carlos after Jackal! I wrote Jackal in 1971 and he was exposed in public in '74!"
He is still very good friends with the film's Jackal, actor Edward Fox, they met for lunch at The Ivy just last week: "Edward's a great guy – we met just as I described in the book."
Frederick tells the tale in his book of the man who read his palm when he was in hospital. He was loath to do it, Frederick insisted, and his predictions have been remarkably accurate this far.
"Well, like all fortune tellers he was very vague, but he was pretty accurate on most of the things about the personal life: the sons, the wives, and writing, he seemed to foresee that. He said one day you will write creatively, and I said 'Oh really?" It wasn't what I had in mind. I was 20 years old and as far as I was concerned I was just dedicated to becoming a journalist. Is that writing? Well, yes it was, but it's not novels. But he did say that I would pop off one day, over 80 he said. I specifically remember that! Alone, and far away in a foreign land in the sun, which seems to indicate that it would be in the Caribbean somewhere, but I'm not going yet!"
Frederick has a picture on his study wall, of 'the old codger sitting in his spitfire', as he puts it. He finally got to fly the spitfire he had dreamed of since he was five years old last year. There are two pictures here. Look at them; the sheer joy on his face is the culmination of childhood dreams. Look again; that is a five year-old child.
So: Spitfire pilot, journo, writer, spy, husband, father, grandfather, friend and occasional political thorn in the side. Is there anything that he would change? It seems those boyhood dreams still count.
"For me it's very simple. I would have loved to fly with the few, just that, but I was 16 years too young
"I've had a lot of fun, I've had a great time and, well, I did the best I could."
Frederick will appear at Cheltenham literature festival on Friday at 2.15pm.
for tickets call 0844 880 8094
Frederick Forsyth: The Outsider is out now, priced £20.
By Corrie Bond-French | GL magazine | September 26, 2015
Pilot, journo, writer, spy. Four words, a line filched from Le Carre, and there you have it; a neat summation of nigh on eight decades of an extraordinary life and career, with an incendiary revelation fizzing away between the covers.
Except Frederick Forsyth, the novelist who lit thriller tinder when he first penned The Day of the Jackal back in the 1970s, doesn't consider his endeavours in subterfuge to be quite so dangerously revelatory anymore.
It is fascinating stuff, and the irony is not lost that he is visiting Cheltenham next Friday for an extremely rare foray into the Literature Festival landscape to talk about his memoirs in The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue, as GCHQ looms large in the background. "I don't do many," he tells me. "I'm notorious for it, but the reason for it is that I am naturally reclusive."
Frederick Forsyth needs little introduction. One of the world's best-known and best- selling writers, he has written some of the most instantly recognisable titles of recent times, and it's quite an oeuvre, including The Day of The Jackal, The Odessa File, Dogs of War and The Fourth Protocol for starters. Many have been made into hit films (Day of The Jackal launched Edward Fox's career and Michael Caine and other such acting luminaries have been happily available for roles). In short, Frederick's contribution to the world's bookshelves set the standard for meticulous research and plausible, realistic plot-lines.
His modus operandi is devastatingly effective: plots assembled with the precision of a Swiss pocket watch; characters and dialogue that linger convincingly long after the last page is turned and the cover dog-eared. It is possible to find oneself in Forsyth cold turkey. I have a cherished picture of my father and myself on holiday when I was 13. We are both in clover reading Forsyth. But he hadn't written that many books back then and we both read quickly. Cue the violins.
But the reason why his novels have endured in popularity for more than 45 years now, is because his cool, reportorial prose spins a convincing yarn; a yarn that unravels with unnerving authenticity. Frederick truly has been in the thick of it, with friends in high and low places and the occasional sleeping with the enemy thrown in for good measure.
Frederick's life story could trump any fictional tale, and lady luck has been a benevolent if not thoroughly indulgent mistress. If his life was a Bond film, she would slink up to him in the casino, kiss the dice and shake his cocktail (so to speak). As Frederick tells me, Bond is 'pure fantasy', but you get the picture. Lucky Frederick. Ergo lucky us.
And what a life he has had. Read on, and imagine you're in a bar, Frederick is beside you, taking a long drag on a Rothmans and regaling you with anecdote after anecdote: you'll have the book in a nutshell.
An academically gifted and, thanks to the prescience of his parents, multi-lingual only child, Frederick rejected the idea of a Cambridge education, opting instead to fulfil his dreams by becoming the youngest RAF fighter pilot at just 19.
He survived an horrific car crash at 20, his hand narrowly saved from amputation thanks to a fortuitously located retired surgeon, and his severed ear was reattached. His hearing was unaffected, but Frederick is no prize-winning golfer. And just as an aside, he also narrowly avoided being raped at knifepoint in Paris when he produced a larger knife, and he even had a stint as a trainee matador.
After earning his wings and completing the National Service he had chosen over that Cambridge degree, his desire to travel prompted his decision to train as a journalist. He earned his reporting chops on the Eastern Daily Press. Then luck struck again.
On what he thought a doomed attempt to get an interview in Fleet Street three years later, Frederick, disillusioned, sought solace in a bar, where a friendly chap struck up conversation. It transpired that he had trained at the same newspaper and knew Frederick's mentor well.
He immediately took young Frederick back to his place of work, which just so happened to be Reuters. Before the sun was over the yard arm they had sussed that Frederick was fluent in French, German and Spanish, and he found himself in Paris as Reuters' foreign correspondent at just 23 years old.
In Paris he covered the repeatedly unsuccessful assassination attempts on President Charles De Gaulle, and he found himself idly musing on the idea that perhaps a lone hitman would be a more successful option...
The following years were just as remarkable. His next move was to become Reuters man in East Berlin. At the height of the Cold War, Frederick was evading the Stasi past Checkpoint Charlie, whilst nearly triggering world war three, then occasionally sleeping with the enemy…
He went on to cover the Biafran War, falling out with the BBC and going freelance. He started writing to earn money, but when The Day of the Jackal hit the bookshelves, his fate as a writer was sealed. He now lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife Sandy, spending time with his two sons and grandchildren. Living, as he tells me, a simple and occasionally scruffy life.
"Basically it is. I spend most of my time around the house in canvas jeans and a farm work shirt, and sometimes I don't shave! Wow! No, I enjoy spending time here. Anyone thinking I've got to have caviar, nah! A ploughman's lunch at the Jolly Cricketers and I'm perfectly happy," said Frederick.
But, as revealing as this may be, it is remarkably only a couple of years since Frederick wrote The Kill List, when his unwavering perfectionism prompted a research trip to Mogadishu, Somalia. He was 75 at the time, and Sandy was not impressed. So did he miss the thrill and danger of it all?
"I didn't really miss it, that's too much. The last time I was, I suppose, in a dicey situation was writing The Kill List. I decided I had got to describe Mogadishu, Somalia and I read some stuff online but it was absolutely pathetic. It wasn't anything like what I knew what it must be, and I read some other writers who clearly hadn't been there. One could tell by just looking at what they had written about Mogadishu and Somalia generally, they just hadn't been there.
"So I said I'm going to have to go, and my wife Sandy said 'you're a damn fool, you're not the youth you used to be'. I said 'I'm 75, but on the other hand, I've got to go'. So I went. So that was that. There was a possibility of something happening there, but to say did I miss it? No, no. I've reached the stage now at 77 that I'm perfectly happy, to play with the grandchildren and take the Jack Russells for a walk. I don't really need to go into the weird situations anymore!" I venture that such a trip at 75 was still quite remarkable, and Frederick chuckles.
"She said if you ever do that again I'm going to sue you with Fiona Shackleton!"
Sandy can probably sleep more easily now, as Frederick has no plans to write another thriller.
"I said the last one would be my last novel. I still think it will be for a whole range of things. I haven't got any other stories that intrigue me, and also the complexity of technology nowadays in that world, the underworld, so to speak, is just baffling me. I can't even understand it. So the old days – and I almost said the good old days – when you had things like microfilm and you wrote things on paper, they're long gone. I think your spook today is just sitting there tapping things into a screen, which I can't find very dramatic!"
But there have been some baffling espionage-related cases in recent times that could be straight out of one of his books, such as the Litvinenko poisoning and the unexplained death of former GCHQ worker Gareth Williams, whose body was mysteriously found in a padlocked holdall in his bath five years ago. So was it foul play – reminiscent of a Forsyth-esque plot?
Frederick concedes: "It might have been, because obviously it was weird, and inexplicable, and I don't think we ever got to the bottom of it properly and we never will now. And occasionally murders, and it was clearly murder I think, but there are murders of course that are never ever solved and this may well be one."
So is his contacts book locked up safely in a vault now? Frederick laughs: "It's right in front of me – I'm staring at it!" Never say never, eh Frederick?
"I don't know about other writers, but I think we all have this in common: we need isolation to write. Some people are at their desk every day writing, then they re-write. I mean Jeffrey Archer does about 15 or 16 rewrites. I couldn't. That would drive me potty. I mean, to go all the way back to page one and start again? No! I just do one, meticulously careful, but just one copy and that goes to the editors. But I do prepare meticulously, I do the research over six months and then write over two. The only thing I don't have any more is deadlines.
"One of the things I like about it is that, unlike commerce for example where it's all about market share, you don't have to crush anybody else to be successful, it can be gentle. So if I see another young man having a blistering success I am delighted, because there's room."
And his admission in the book about his role as an asset for MI6 may well ruffle Whitehall feathers yet.
"Well, it's called asset or agent but really it's errand runner. I just ran a few errands, that's all," he tells me.
"A lot of people back then in the Cold War did, as I never cease to say, a lot of business men were approached. If you were going to a trade fair in a rather difficult to get at city, it was 'would you just do a little favour for us? If an envelope came under your hotel door would you put it in your attached case and bring it home?' And most said 'yeah, yeah'. It's why we had, or have, a brilliant intelligence service at a very cheap rate. The taxpayer is not being short-changed, believe me!"
Is he expecting any reprimand for his contra-Official Secrets Act admission?
"I may be rebuked yet! It's the big word isn't it? S.P.Y. The media, and I know you are of the media and it's like shoving heroin to a junkie, but it wasn't so spectacular. James Bond was a fantasy, and always will be a fantasy. The stuff that was really pretty much accurate the way it was, was the George Smiley stuff. But that came from David Cornwall (aka John Le Carre) of course who was in it, and now admitted belatedly that he was. But he was on the staff you see, I was never on the staff. I was just serving as a volunteer and occasionally, now and again.
"And again the phrase 'over twenty years'. It was four or five things over that span, just errands, favours. And the only reason that I felt that I would be allowed was because I didn't ask. There might be someone miffed down there that I broke the code. But I just think it's so far back and we've had so many released secrets now; the 30-year rule cabinet documents, private and very secret memos exchanged between Prime Ministers which were all released under the 30-year rule, and I'm talking 45 years ago. And you know, East Germany has gone, the Stasis have gone, the USSR has gone. Communism has gone, except in the Labour party!" he laughs.
"It was a different world, and I don't see how anybody could be endangered by some Boys' Own paper anecdotes of 45 years ago. I don't know, the professionals might say 'I shouldn't have told anybody anything', but then I do remember far enough back to when we never officially told anyone we had an intelligence service."
Frederick is hard-pushed to say which of his thrillers was the most enjoyable to write.
"Oh Lord, I can't recall, I really can't. But the most traumatic was the stuff in Biafra. That was at the other end of the scale because that did scar me. I was there two years in a hell hole situation and I watched many, many children die of starvation… a black and white picture in the paper or even on TV is not the same as being there. So Biafra was revelatory and horrible and to this day I can't forget it."
But, the horrors of conflict aside, Frederick happily acknowledges that he has had more than his fair share of good fortune.
"I had a wonderful childhood. My father was in his way a great man. He was just a shopkeeper, but a kind, decent man.
"I have had amazing luck. I have some outbreaks of ill luck, like when I foolishly entrusted the guardianship of all my life savings to a man I thought was a friend, who turned out to be a conman and a swindler, and he embezzled all of my life savings going back to zero at the age of 50, and I had to start all over again... but most of my luck has been the other way, it's been good.
"I look back with great gratitude, but I don't quite know who to thank! I'm not a great believer but I will have to make my mind up soon; I may have to meet him!"
Frederick reads mostly non-fiction, and he finds the last 50 years the most interesting time to read about. He reckons more change occurred within the last 50 years than in the previous 200. It has been an interesting time to live through.
And he is still bemused that his creation of The Jackal has passed into common-parlance for hit men when the Venezuelan assassin Carlos the Jackal was exposed and later caught.
"I was asked 'why did you name him (The Jackal) after Carlos?' And I went pink 'I didn't! The press named Carlos after Jackal! I wrote Jackal in 1971 and he was exposed in public in '74!"
He is still very good friends with the film's Jackal, actor Edward Fox, they met for lunch at The Ivy just last week: "Edward's a great guy – we met just as I described in the book."
Frederick tells the tale in his book of the man who read his palm when he was in hospital. He was loath to do it, Frederick insisted, and his predictions have been remarkably accurate this far.
"Well, like all fortune tellers he was very vague, but he was pretty accurate on most of the things about the personal life: the sons, the wives, and writing, he seemed to foresee that. He said one day you will write creatively, and I said 'Oh really?" It wasn't what I had in mind. I was 20 years old and as far as I was concerned I was just dedicated to becoming a journalist. Is that writing? Well, yes it was, but it's not novels. But he did say that I would pop off one day, over 80 he said. I specifically remember that! Alone, and far away in a foreign land in the sun, which seems to indicate that it would be in the Caribbean somewhere, but I'm not going yet!"
Frederick has a picture on his study wall, of 'the old codger sitting in his spitfire', as he puts it. He finally got to fly the spitfire he had dreamed of since he was five years old last year. There are two pictures here. Look at them; the sheer joy on his face is the culmination of childhood dreams. Look again; that is a five year-old child.
So: Spitfire pilot, journo, writer, spy, husband, father, grandfather, friend and occasional political thorn in the side. Is there anything that he would change? It seems those boyhood dreams still count.
"For me it's very simple. I would have loved to fly with the few, just that, but I was 16 years too young
"I've had a lot of fun, I've had a great time and, well, I did the best I could."
Frederick will appear at Cheltenham literature festival on Friday at 2.15pm.
for tickets call 0844 880 8094
Frederick Forsyth: The Outsider is out now, priced £20.
Filed under
Frederick Forsyth
by Winter Patriot
on Saturday, September 26, 2015 |
link |
email |
TSWKTM home |
SHATASM home |
WP home
Gloucestershire Echo : GCHQ codebreaker Gareth Williams was 'murdered', believes author and MI6 operative Frederick Forsyth
Friday, September 25, 2015
GCHQ codebreaker Gareth Williams was 'murdered', believes author and MI6 operative Frederick Forsyth
By Corrie Bond-French | September 25, 2015
Internationally best-selling author and former MI6 operative Frederick Forsyth has revealed that he believes former GCHQ worker Gareth Williams' death was 'clearly murder'.
The author, famous for thrillers including The Day of The Jackal, The Odessa Files and Dogs of War, spoke to the Gloucestershire Echo's GL magazine in an exclusive interview ahead of his appearance at Cheltenham Literature Festival next Friday.
The death of Gareth Williams divided opinion after conflicting conclusions were drawn by the coroner and Scotland Yard.
The naked body of the 31-year-old codes and ciphers expert was found in a padlocked holdall in the bath of his top-floor flat in Pimlico, central London, on August, 23, 2010.
Agreeing that the unresolved case bore similarities to a fictional plot, Frederick Forsyth said: "It might have been, because obviously it was weird, and inexplicable, and I don't think we ever got to the bottom of it properly and we never will now.
"And occasionally murders, and it was clearly murder I think, but there are murders of course that are never ever solved and this may well be one."
Gareth, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, was due to return to Cheltenham the week after he died.
A coroner concluded that Williams was probably unlawfully killed and his death the result of a criminal act following an eight-day inquest in 2012,
Westminster coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, said he was probably either suffocated or poisoned, before a third party locked and placed the bag in the bath.
But Scotland Yard's three-year inquiry concluding in 2013 stated that Williams was 'most probably' alone when he died.
The author and former journalist also spoke about his recent admission that he was an agent for the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, in the past.
"Well, it's called asset or agent but really it's errand runner. I just ran a few errands, that's all."
The author will make a rare appearance at Cheltenham Literature Festival on Friday, October 2. Read the full interview in this weekend's new GL magazine, free exclusively with the Gloucestershire Echo and Gloucester Citizen.
By Corrie Bond-French | September 25, 2015
Internationally best-selling author and former MI6 operative Frederick Forsyth has revealed that he believes former GCHQ worker Gareth Williams' death was 'clearly murder'.
The author, famous for thrillers including The Day of The Jackal, The Odessa Files and Dogs of War, spoke to the Gloucestershire Echo's GL magazine in an exclusive interview ahead of his appearance at Cheltenham Literature Festival next Friday.
The death of Gareth Williams divided opinion after conflicting conclusions were drawn by the coroner and Scotland Yard.
The naked body of the 31-year-old codes and ciphers expert was found in a padlocked holdall in the bath of his top-floor flat in Pimlico, central London, on August, 23, 2010.
Agreeing that the unresolved case bore similarities to a fictional plot, Frederick Forsyth said: "It might have been, because obviously it was weird, and inexplicable, and I don't think we ever got to the bottom of it properly and we never will now.
"And occasionally murders, and it was clearly murder I think, but there are murders of course that are never ever solved and this may well be one."
Gareth, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, was due to return to Cheltenham the week after he died.
A coroner concluded that Williams was probably unlawfully killed and his death the result of a criminal act following an eight-day inquest in 2012,
Westminster coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, said he was probably either suffocated or poisoned, before a third party locked and placed the bag in the bath.
But Scotland Yard's three-year inquiry concluding in 2013 stated that Williams was 'most probably' alone when he died.
The author and former journalist also spoke about his recent admission that he was an agent for the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, in the past.
"Well, it's called asset or agent but really it's errand runner. I just ran a few errands, that's all."
The author will make a rare appearance at Cheltenham Literature Festival on Friday, October 2. Read the full interview in this weekend's new GL magazine, free exclusively with the Gloucestershire Echo and Gloucester Citizen.
Filed under
Frederick Forsyth,
murder
by Winter Patriot
on Friday, September 25, 2015 |
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Courier Mail : Forensic experts question MI6 body-in-bag theories five years after mystery death
Monday, September 21, 2015
Forensic experts question MI6 body-in-bag theories five years after mystery death
ROHAN SMITH | news.com.au | September 21, 2015
WHEN nobody had heard from Gareth Williams for seven days, alarm bells rang.
The maths genius, who graduated from university at just 17, had secrets — plenty of them — but no one was prepared for what they found. Five years on, experts still have trouble explaining it.
The MI6 spy’s life was a mystery covered up by the British government because his work was so secretive. But his death may end up being the greatest mystery of all, throwing up salacious theories involving sex games, cross-dressing and a hit planned and executed to perfection by the UK’s best trained spooks.
On August 23, 2010, colleagues told police they hadn’t seen 31-year-old Williams for a week. A welfare check led Scotland Yard to a disturbing scene at his immaculately-kept apartment in Pimlico, a small area of central London bound by the Thames.
In his home was a woman's wig, lipstick and makeup and a cutting from The Observer newspaper headlined "Top five regrets of the dying”.
In the bathroom they found his body, zipped inside a red and black duffel bag that had been padlocked from the outside and placed in the bath. Without a mark on him and no sign of a struggle, was it possible he got into the bag himself?
‘EVEN HOUDINI WOULD HAVE STRUGGLED’
Williams was a smart guy, no doubts about it.
Always ahead of the curve, he graduated with a first-class degree as a teen, completed his PhD at one of England’s top universities and scored a job he couldn’t talk about in the murky world of espionage — as a codebreaker for the British Secret Service.
But forensic investigator Peter Faulding says Williams would have had “to be Houdini” to have locked himself in a duffel bag the size of the one he was found in.
To prove the point, Mr Faulding tried to lock himself in the same bag, in the same bath, 300 times without success.
“I couldn’t say it’s impossible, but I think even Houdini would have struggled with this one,” Mr Faulding told UK newspaperThe Sun.
“The only way I could get myself into the bag was to lie on my back, put my shoulders and head in first, and bending my body at my stomach, pulling my knees up and pulling the bag over my body.
“I am used to confined spaces, and once I’m in that bag, it is a very unpleasant place to be.”
He said a person could only survive for 30 minutes inside the bag and is convinced Williams met with foul play. Others agree.
But if Williams was overpowered, his killers did not leave a scratch on his body. Coroner Fiona Wilcox said in 2010 that Williams showed no signs of injury or struggle and he was neither under the influence of drugs or alcohol in the week that he died.
The New York Times wrote in 2012 that Britain was “riveted” by the country’s “strangest real-life spy mystery”. Three years later the mystery endures. Without conclusive evidence, the theories continue to multiply, including fresh claims that the discovery of $43,000 worth of women’s designer clothes found in William’s wardrobe were not a personal peccadillo but all part of his work as a spy.
THE THEORIES
On the street, Gareth Williams was a keen cyclist with a clean-cut look and a good job. Inside his apartment, some say he was a different person altogether.
Among his collection of high-priced women’s clothes were wigs and underwear.
On his computer they found information that led some to the conclusion that his death was the result of a sex fetish.
According to police, Williams visited websites for people interested in bondage and claustophilia — a fetish whereby one derives sexual pleasure from being locked in tight spaces.
Detective Constable Simon Warren, investigating the case, said the websites were an “isolated incident among a sea of other data”.
Williams shaved his legs and kept a trim figure, leading some to believe he was a cross-dresser.
Mr Faulding, still on the case after all these years, said this week he was convinced Williams kept the clothes not for pleasure but for work: “The key question never asked was: ‘Were these clothes used for his job?’” he told The Sun.
“I am certain they were.”
The Sun in August broke news that Williams had, in the weeks before his death, hacked into US President Bill Clinton’s computer “as a favour to a friend”.
In doing so, Williams breached his security clearance and reportedly provoked the ire of his bosses at MI6.
The information gave weight to theories from early in the investigation suggesting Williams was killed by agents who not only did the deed but returned to cover their tracks.
The Daily Mail reported that forensic equipment placed at the crime scene was moved despite the building being under armed police guard. Scotland Yard concluded someone “must have scaled the building’s walls and broken in through the skylight to cover their tracks”.
CHILDHOOD SWEETHEART TELLS ALL
Williams’ life was a closely guarded secret but he did let one person in. Her name was Sian Lloyd-Jones and she was Williams’ childhood sweetheart and confidante.
In an interview in 2010, Lloyd-Jones said the man she knew was not the same person she was seeing portrayed in the media. She said the womens’ clothes he bought were for her and his sister.
“The person everyone talks about I don’t recognise him at all,” she told Mail on Sunday. “He was the complete opposite of everything that has been said about him. It’s been awful for everyone but particularly his family. They’re at breaking point, to be honest.”
She said Williams was a “lovely guy, a true, old school gentleman”.
“He had an excellent sense of humour and, from the bottom of my heart, he was the most charming, sensitive, gorgeous man. Truly, he was one in a million. He was somebody who really had a sound judgment for life.”
She said he was a workaholic but he was happy and content.
“He wasn’t a loner and he wasn’t lonely.”
Originally published as ‘Even Houdini would’ve struggled’
ROHAN SMITH | news.com.au | September 21, 2015
WHEN nobody had heard from Gareth Williams for seven days, alarm bells rang.
The maths genius, who graduated from university at just 17, had secrets — plenty of them — but no one was prepared for what they found. Five years on, experts still have trouble explaining it.
The MI6 spy’s life was a mystery covered up by the British government because his work was so secretive. But his death may end up being the greatest mystery of all, throwing up salacious theories involving sex games, cross-dressing and a hit planned and executed to perfection by the UK’s best trained spooks.
On August 23, 2010, colleagues told police they hadn’t seen 31-year-old Williams for a week. A welfare check led Scotland Yard to a disturbing scene at his immaculately-kept apartment in Pimlico, a small area of central London bound by the Thames.
In his home was a woman's wig, lipstick and makeup and a cutting from The Observer newspaper headlined "Top five regrets of the dying”.
In the bathroom they found his body, zipped inside a red and black duffel bag that had been padlocked from the outside and placed in the bath. Without a mark on him and no sign of a struggle, was it possible he got into the bag himself?
‘EVEN HOUDINI WOULD HAVE STRUGGLED’
Williams was a smart guy, no doubts about it.
Always ahead of the curve, he graduated with a first-class degree as a teen, completed his PhD at one of England’s top universities and scored a job he couldn’t talk about in the murky world of espionage — as a codebreaker for the British Secret Service.
But forensic investigator Peter Faulding says Williams would have had “to be Houdini” to have locked himself in a duffel bag the size of the one he was found in.
To prove the point, Mr Faulding tried to lock himself in the same bag, in the same bath, 300 times without success.
“I couldn’t say it’s impossible, but I think even Houdini would have struggled with this one,” Mr Faulding told UK newspaperThe Sun.
“The only way I could get myself into the bag was to lie on my back, put my shoulders and head in first, and bending my body at my stomach, pulling my knees up and pulling the bag over my body.
“I am used to confined spaces, and once I’m in that bag, it is a very unpleasant place to be.”
He said a person could only survive for 30 minutes inside the bag and is convinced Williams met with foul play. Others agree.
But if Williams was overpowered, his killers did not leave a scratch on his body. Coroner Fiona Wilcox said in 2010 that Williams showed no signs of injury or struggle and he was neither under the influence of drugs or alcohol in the week that he died.
The New York Times wrote in 2012 that Britain was “riveted” by the country’s “strangest real-life spy mystery”. Three years later the mystery endures. Without conclusive evidence, the theories continue to multiply, including fresh claims that the discovery of $43,000 worth of women’s designer clothes found in William’s wardrobe were not a personal peccadillo but all part of his work as a spy.
THE THEORIES
On the street, Gareth Williams was a keen cyclist with a clean-cut look and a good job. Inside his apartment, some say he was a different person altogether.
Among his collection of high-priced women’s clothes were wigs and underwear.
On his computer they found information that led some to the conclusion that his death was the result of a sex fetish.
According to police, Williams visited websites for people interested in bondage and claustophilia — a fetish whereby one derives sexual pleasure from being locked in tight spaces.
Detective Constable Simon Warren, investigating the case, said the websites were an “isolated incident among a sea of other data”.
Williams shaved his legs and kept a trim figure, leading some to believe he was a cross-dresser.
Mr Faulding, still on the case after all these years, said this week he was convinced Williams kept the clothes not for pleasure but for work: “The key question never asked was: ‘Were these clothes used for his job?’” he told The Sun.
“I am certain they were.”
The Sun in August broke news that Williams had, in the weeks before his death, hacked into US President Bill Clinton’s computer “as a favour to a friend”.
In doing so, Williams breached his security clearance and reportedly provoked the ire of his bosses at MI6.
The information gave weight to theories from early in the investigation suggesting Williams was killed by agents who not only did the deed but returned to cover their tracks.
The Daily Mail reported that forensic equipment placed at the crime scene was moved despite the building being under armed police guard. Scotland Yard concluded someone “must have scaled the building’s walls and broken in through the skylight to cover their tracks”.
CHILDHOOD SWEETHEART TELLS ALL
Williams’ life was a closely guarded secret but he did let one person in. Her name was Sian Lloyd-Jones and she was Williams’ childhood sweetheart and confidante.
In an interview in 2010, Lloyd-Jones said the man she knew was not the same person she was seeing portrayed in the media. She said the womens’ clothes he bought were for her and his sister.
“The person everyone talks about I don’t recognise him at all,” she told Mail on Sunday. “He was the complete opposite of everything that has been said about him. It’s been awful for everyone but particularly his family. They’re at breaking point, to be honest.”
She said Williams was a “lovely guy, a true, old school gentleman”.
“He had an excellent sense of humour and, from the bottom of my heart, he was the most charming, sensitive, gorgeous man. Truly, he was one in a million. He was somebody who really had a sound judgment for life.”
She said he was a workaholic but he was happy and content.
“He wasn’t a loner and he wasn’t lonely.”
Originally published as ‘Even Houdini would’ve struggled’
Filed under
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Peter Faulding,
Sian Lloyd-Jones,
Simon Warren
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on Monday, September 21, 2015 |
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Sun : Spy in the drag
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Spy in the drag
EXCLUSIVE: New claim on MI6 bag death
by ALISON SMITH-SQUIRE | September 20, 2015
THE MI6 spy whose body was found in a bag worked undercover as a woman, an expert claims.
It would explain why Gareth Williams, 31, had £20,000 worth of ladies’ designer clothes and shoes and a red wig at his home.
The theory also answers why his neighbours saw only a woman coming and going to his flat.
Forensic investigator Peter Faulding, who has probed the mystery death, said: “The key question never asked was, ‘Were these clothes used for his job?’. I am certain they were.”
Peter claims the expensive items were bought by Williams’ bosses.
He added: “I’m certain he made a very convincing female. He was slim, with feminine features. And as a cyclist he shaved his legs.”
It has been suspected the clothes were part of a secret lifestyle.
Gareth was found naked in a locked bag at his flat in Pimlico, central London, in 2010. An inquest ruled he was probably killed unlawfully.
EXCLUSIVE: New claim on MI6 bag death
by ALISON SMITH-SQUIRE | September 20, 2015
THE MI6 spy whose body was found in a bag worked undercover as a woman, an expert claims.
It would explain why Gareth Williams, 31, had £20,000 worth of ladies’ designer clothes and shoes and a red wig at his home.
The theory also answers why his neighbours saw only a woman coming and going to his flat.
Forensic investigator Peter Faulding, who has probed the mystery death, said: “The key question never asked was, ‘Were these clothes used for his job?’. I am certain they were.”
Peter claims the expensive items were bought by Williams’ bosses.
He added: “I’m certain he made a very convincing female. He was slim, with feminine features. And as a cyclist he shaved his legs.”
It has been suspected the clothes were part of a secret lifestyle.
Gareth was found naked in a locked bag at his flat in Pimlico, central London, in 2010. An inquest ruled he was probably killed unlawfully.
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New Zealand Herald : Spy found dead in bag 'had infuriated his MI6 bosses'
Monday, August 31, 2015
Spy found dead in bag 'had infuriated his MI6 bosses'
August 31, 2015
The British spy whose body was found padlocked inside a bag in his flat had illegally hacked into secret data on former U.S. president Bill Clinton, it has been revealed.
Gareth Williams, 31, was discovered in a holdall in the bath at his London home five years ago this month, but the mystery surrounding his death has never been solved.
Today, it has been revealed the spy had dug out a guest list for an event Clinton was due to attend as a favour for a friend.
The hack breached Mr Williams' security clearance and this sparked anger among MI6 bosses as tensions rose with U.S. security services over the spy's transatlantic work, The Sun on Sunday has reported.
A source said: "The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams' work with America was of the most sensitive nature.
"It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time."
The paper has also reported that voicemail messages Mr Williams, a maths genius and expert cryptographer, left for family and friends were deleted shortly after his death.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that detectives who investigated the mysterious death believe he was murdered and that his killers then broke back in through a skylight to cover their tracks.
The claim centres on the revelation that part of the forensic equipment placed in the flat after the body was found was moved - despite the fact the building was under armed police guard.
The theory supports his family's suspicions he was murdered by "agents specialising in the dark arts of the secret services".
Mr Williams had been working with the American National Security Agency in Washington before returning to London, where he underwent training and was sent on active operations.
The exact nature of his work remains a closely guarded secret, but sources claim he dealt with equipment that tracked the flow of cash from Russia to Europe.
The technology enabled MI6 to follow money trails from bank accounts in Russia to criminal European gangs. One theory is that Mr Williams had disrupted a mafia ring closely linked to the Russian state.
Cars registered to the Russian Embassy were spotted near his Pimlico flat just days before his body was discovered on August 23, 2010.
Mr Williams was last seen alive on August 15 - a Kremlin car was seen near his property that day.
Other lines of inquiry, also dismissed by the Metropolitan Police at the time, were that he was killed by MI6 or American agents after stumbling on sensitive data, or because he threatened to make secret intelligence public.
There were also claims Mr Williams may have been killed by a lover during a bizarre sex game.
Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox, who heard the 2012 inquest into his death, criticised MI6 for failing to report that the spy had been missing for a week, saying this caused extra suffering for his family and led to the loss of forensic evidence.
The delay, for which MI6 apologised, also meant a Home Office pathologist was unable to find a cause of death.
Dr Wilcox concluded that Mr Williams's death was "unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated".
She said she was satisfied "on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully", as it was likely someone else had put his body in the bag and locked it.
But a year later, Scotland Yard ended a review of the investigation, saying it was more likely Williams had locked himself in the bag and that no one else was involved.
This is despite there being no traces of Mr Williams' own DNA on the padlock of the bag he was found in. His palm prints were not found on the bathtub which held the bag.
Another theory was that Mr William's was poisoned. Former Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton was the most senior officer on the scene when he arrived at Mr Williams' flat in Pimlico on August 23, 2010.
He thought the flat was unusually warm when he arrived, claiming the heating was turned up to its maximum setting, possibly to assist with decomposition.
He said: "If he had been poisoned, then the chemical compounds might have vanished by the time toxicology results were conducted."
- Daily Mail
August 31, 2015
The British spy whose body was found padlocked inside a bag in his flat had illegally hacked into secret data on former U.S. president Bill Clinton, it has been revealed.
Gareth Williams, 31, was discovered in a holdall in the bath at his London home five years ago this month, but the mystery surrounding his death has never been solved.
Today, it has been revealed the spy had dug out a guest list for an event Clinton was due to attend as a favour for a friend.
The hack breached Mr Williams' security clearance and this sparked anger among MI6 bosses as tensions rose with U.S. security services over the spy's transatlantic work, The Sun on Sunday has reported.
A source said: "The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams' work with America was of the most sensitive nature.
"It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time."
The paper has also reported that voicemail messages Mr Williams, a maths genius and expert cryptographer, left for family and friends were deleted shortly after his death.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that detectives who investigated the mysterious death believe he was murdered and that his killers then broke back in through a skylight to cover their tracks.
The claim centres on the revelation that part of the forensic equipment placed in the flat after the body was found was moved - despite the fact the building was under armed police guard.
The theory supports his family's suspicions he was murdered by "agents specialising in the dark arts of the secret services".
Mr Williams had been working with the American National Security Agency in Washington before returning to London, where he underwent training and was sent on active operations.
The exact nature of his work remains a closely guarded secret, but sources claim he dealt with equipment that tracked the flow of cash from Russia to Europe.
The technology enabled MI6 to follow money trails from bank accounts in Russia to criminal European gangs. One theory is that Mr Williams had disrupted a mafia ring closely linked to the Russian state.
Cars registered to the Russian Embassy were spotted near his Pimlico flat just days before his body was discovered on August 23, 2010.
Mr Williams was last seen alive on August 15 - a Kremlin car was seen near his property that day.
Other lines of inquiry, also dismissed by the Metropolitan Police at the time, were that he was killed by MI6 or American agents after stumbling on sensitive data, or because he threatened to make secret intelligence public.
There were also claims Mr Williams may have been killed by a lover during a bizarre sex game.
Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox, who heard the 2012 inquest into his death, criticised MI6 for failing to report that the spy had been missing for a week, saying this caused extra suffering for his family and led to the loss of forensic evidence.
The delay, for which MI6 apologised, also meant a Home Office pathologist was unable to find a cause of death.
Dr Wilcox concluded that Mr Williams's death was "unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated".
She said she was satisfied "on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully", as it was likely someone else had put his body in the bag and locked it.
But a year later, Scotland Yard ended a review of the investigation, saying it was more likely Williams had locked himself in the bag and that no one else was involved.
This is despite there being no traces of Mr Williams' own DNA on the padlock of the bag he was found in. His palm prints were not found on the bathtub which held the bag.
Another theory was that Mr William's was poisoned. Former Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton was the most senior officer on the scene when he arrived at Mr Williams' flat in Pimlico on August 23, 2010.
He thought the flat was unusually warm when he arrived, claiming the heating was turned up to its maximum setting, possibly to assist with decomposition.
He said: "If he had been poisoned, then the chemical compounds might have vanished by the time toxicology results were conducted."
- Daily Mail
Filed under
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Sun : Clinton secrets hacked by spy in bag
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Clinton secrets hacked by spy in bag
August 30, 2015
THE MI6 spy found dead in a holdall had illegally hacked into secret data on Bill Clinton, The Sun on Sunday can reveal.
Gareth Williams, 31, dug out the guestlist for an event the former American president was going to as a favour for a pal.
The codebreaker — who had breached his security clearance — handed the list to the friend, who was also to be a guest.
MI6 bosses raged over the data breach amid growing tensions with US security services over Mr Williams’s transatlantic work.
Today, just over five years since his body was found inside a padlocked bag, his death remains one of Britain’s most mysterious unsolved cases.
The Sun on Sunday can reveal that voicemail messages Mr Williams left for family and pals were deleted in the days after his death. And a rival agent may also have broken into the flat to destroy or remove evidence.
The inquest was barred from discussing Mr Williams’s work in public. But sources say he was helping on the joint monitoring network Echelon, which uses sophisticated programs to eavesdrop on terrorists and criminal gangs, particularly those in Russia.
Echelon is used by Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
A source said: “The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams’s work with America was of the most sensitive nature.
“It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time.”
Insiders claim Mr Williams, who had been given a second passport with a fresh identity, was also getting fed up with living a secret life. He is said to have loathed his spy training after having his wrist broken during one hardcore session.
One insider said: “Williams’s state of mind in the months before his death was worrying those closest to him.
“He found the training so stressful and his mood blackened even talking about it.
“Typically he’d be asked to learn a new identity then report to a country hotel to meet an interrogation team. There he would be grilled about his new ID for 48 hours without sleep.
“His wrist was broken once after he was handcuffed to a metal bar inside a van that was driven around the country for several hours while he faced a barrage of questions.”
His sister Ceri Subbe also told the inquest he did not enjoy the “flash car competition and post-work drinking culture” of MI6.
He had applied to return to GCHQ, in Cheltenham, but bosses were slow in approving this.
Mr Williams, a keen cyclist originally from Anglesey, North Wales, died shortly after returning from a hacking conference in America.
He had been to see a drag queen show by himself two days before he was last seen alive, on August 15, 2010.
Eight days later his naked body was found folded into the 32in by 19in bag placed in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London.
His mobile phone and sim cards were laid out on a table. The last computer evidence of him being alive showed him looking at a cycling website.
Detectives are still baffled as to how the maths genius and expert cryptographer died.
An initial line of inquiry was that he was killed by a jealous lover. Yet there were no signs of forced entry to the flat.
In 2012, lawyers for his family said he could have been killed by someone who specialised in the “dark arts of the secret services”. The police did not rule out his intelligence work playing a part in his death.
They thought he may have been stuffed in the bag by killers who later broke back in to cover their tracks.
Investigators also suspect the flat had been “steam-cleaned”, which would explain why no DNA evidence was found.
The nature of Mr Williams’s work remains a secret, but sources claim he dealt with equipment that tracked the flow of cash from Russia to Europe. The technology let MI6 follow money trails from accounts in Russia to criminal gangs.
A Kremlin car was spotted near his home on the day he was last seen alive.
Police also issued e-fits of a “Mediterranean” couple said to have visited Mr Williams in either June or July.
Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox, who heard the 2012 inquest into his death, criticised MI6 for failing to report Mr Williams missing for a week. The delay meant a Home Office pathologist was unable to find a cause of death.
Dr Wilcox concluded that Mr Williams’s death was “unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated”.
She ruled out his interest in bondage and drag queens as having any bearing, adding: “I wonder if this was an attempt by some third party to manipulate the evidence.”
She also dismissed speculation that Mr Williams died due to some kind of “auto-erotic activity” and denied he had any interest in claustrophilia, the love of enclosed spaces.
Experts said even escapologist Harry Houdini would have struggled to lock himself in the bag. Pathologists said Mr Williams would have suffocated within three minutes if he was still alive when put in there.
Yet a year later, Scotland Yard ended a review of the investigation, saying it was more likely Mr Williams had locked himself in the bag and no one else was involved. The announcement angered Mr Williams’s family, who said they stood by the coroner’s findings.
Last night a Met spokesman said: “The death of Gareth Williams was subject to a thorough investigation and coroner’s inquest. We are not prepared to speculate.”
tom.morgan@the-sun.co.uk
August 30, 2015
THE MI6 spy found dead in a holdall had illegally hacked into secret data on Bill Clinton, The Sun on Sunday can reveal.
Gareth Williams, 31, dug out the guestlist for an event the former American president was going to as a favour for a pal.
The codebreaker — who had breached his security clearance — handed the list to the friend, who was also to be a guest.
MI6 bosses raged over the data breach amid growing tensions with US security services over Mr Williams’s transatlantic work.
Today, just over five years since his body was found inside a padlocked bag, his death remains one of Britain’s most mysterious unsolved cases.
The Sun on Sunday can reveal that voicemail messages Mr Williams left for family and pals were deleted in the days after his death. And a rival agent may also have broken into the flat to destroy or remove evidence.
The inquest was barred from discussing Mr Williams’s work in public. But sources say he was helping on the joint monitoring network Echelon, which uses sophisticated programs to eavesdrop on terrorists and criminal gangs, particularly those in Russia.
Echelon is used by Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
A source said: “The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams’s work with America was of the most sensitive nature.
“It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time.”
Insiders claim Mr Williams, who had been given a second passport with a fresh identity, was also getting fed up with living a secret life. He is said to have loathed his spy training after having his wrist broken during one hardcore session.
One insider said: “Williams’s state of mind in the months before his death was worrying those closest to him.
“He found the training so stressful and his mood blackened even talking about it.
“Typically he’d be asked to learn a new identity then report to a country hotel to meet an interrogation team. There he would be grilled about his new ID for 48 hours without sleep.
“His wrist was broken once after he was handcuffed to a metal bar inside a van that was driven around the country for several hours while he faced a barrage of questions.”
His sister Ceri Subbe also told the inquest he did not enjoy the “flash car competition and post-work drinking culture” of MI6.
He had applied to return to GCHQ, in Cheltenham, but bosses were slow in approving this.
Mr Williams, a keen cyclist originally from Anglesey, North Wales, died shortly after returning from a hacking conference in America.
He had been to see a drag queen show by himself two days before he was last seen alive, on August 15, 2010.
Eight days later his naked body was found folded into the 32in by 19in bag placed in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London.
His mobile phone and sim cards were laid out on a table. The last computer evidence of him being alive showed him looking at a cycling website.
Detectives are still baffled as to how the maths genius and expert cryptographer died.
An initial line of inquiry was that he was killed by a jealous lover. Yet there were no signs of forced entry to the flat.
In 2012, lawyers for his family said he could have been killed by someone who specialised in the “dark arts of the secret services”. The police did not rule out his intelligence work playing a part in his death.
They thought he may have been stuffed in the bag by killers who later broke back in to cover their tracks.
Investigators also suspect the flat had been “steam-cleaned”, which would explain why no DNA evidence was found.
The nature of Mr Williams’s work remains a secret, but sources claim he dealt with equipment that tracked the flow of cash from Russia to Europe. The technology let MI6 follow money trails from accounts in Russia to criminal gangs.
A Kremlin car was spotted near his home on the day he was last seen alive.
Police also issued e-fits of a “Mediterranean” couple said to have visited Mr Williams in either June or July.
Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox, who heard the 2012 inquest into his death, criticised MI6 for failing to report Mr Williams missing for a week. The delay meant a Home Office pathologist was unable to find a cause of death.
Dr Wilcox concluded that Mr Williams’s death was “unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated”.
She ruled out his interest in bondage and drag queens as having any bearing, adding: “I wonder if this was an attempt by some third party to manipulate the evidence.”
She also dismissed speculation that Mr Williams died due to some kind of “auto-erotic activity” and denied he had any interest in claustrophilia, the love of enclosed spaces.
Experts said even escapologist Harry Houdini would have struggled to lock himself in the bag. Pathologists said Mr Williams would have suffocated within three minutes if he was still alive when put in there.
Yet a year later, Scotland Yard ended a review of the investigation, saying it was more likely Mr Williams had locked himself in the bag and no one else was involved. The announcement angered Mr Williams’s family, who said they stood by the coroner’s findings.
Last night a Met spokesman said: “The death of Gareth Williams was subject to a thorough investigation and coroner’s inquest. We are not prepared to speculate.”
tom.morgan@the-sun.co.uk
Theories and evidence
— Killed by a rival spy agency. Police issued e-fit of visiting couple.
— Murdered by a jealous lover. No sign of a break-in at Pimlico flat.
— He may have got a sexual kick from being left helpless.
— Coroner says death “unlawful” and “likely criminally mediated”.
— Yard review later said it was probably an accident with no one else present.
Filed under
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Breitbart : MI6 Spy Found Dead in Bag in Bath Had Hacked Clinton Data
Sunday, August 30, 2015
MI6 Spy Found Dead in Bag in Bath Had Hacked Clinton Data
by Breitbart London | August 30, 2015
The MI6 spy who was found dead inside a holdall bag in his bathtub in London hacked into secret data held on former U.S. President Bill Clinton, The Sun newspaper has sensationally claimed today.
Gareth Williams was 31 years old when he was found naked, dead in his own bathtub in Pimlico, just a few minutes walk away from Britain’s Houses of Parliament.
Speculation has been rife ever since his death in September 2010 about the circumstances surrounding his death. A Metropolitan Police investigation revealed predictably, though suspiciously, that Mr Williams’ death was “probably an accident”. This was despite an initial inquest concluding that his death was “unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated.”
Since then the unexplained death has been the subject of investigation by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The BBC reported as early as December 2010 that Mr Williams had been on secondment from Britain’s signals intelligence operation GCHQ to MI6, and then subsequently to the United States’ National Security Agency.
The Sun reports that Williams had “dug out the guestlist for an event the former American president was going to as a favour for a pal.”
The Murdoch-owned paper reports:
A number of theories exist about Mr William’s death, including that of a scorned ex-lover, a “Kremlin car” driving past his house, and some bizarre sexual fantasies that Mr Williams may have played out and taken too far.
Mr Williams had no alcohol or drugs in his system when he was found, and the inquest found that he would not have been able to seal himself in the bag alone.
The Metropolitan Police refused to comment on the new revelations that Mr Clinton’s security details may have been breached by Mr Williams.
by Breitbart London | August 30, 2015
The MI6 spy who was found dead inside a holdall bag in his bathtub in London hacked into secret data held on former U.S. President Bill Clinton, The Sun newspaper has sensationally claimed today.
Gareth Williams was 31 years old when he was found naked, dead in his own bathtub in Pimlico, just a few minutes walk away from Britain’s Houses of Parliament.
Speculation has been rife ever since his death in September 2010 about the circumstances surrounding his death. A Metropolitan Police investigation revealed predictably, though suspiciously, that Mr Williams’ death was “probably an accident”. This was despite an initial inquest concluding that his death was “unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated.”
Since then the unexplained death has been the subject of investigation by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The BBC reported as early as December 2010 that Mr Williams had been on secondment from Britain’s signals intelligence operation GCHQ to MI6, and then subsequently to the United States’ National Security Agency.
The Sun reports that Williams had “dug out the guestlist for an event the former American president was going to as a favour for a pal.”
The Murdoch-owned paper reports:
The Sun on Sunday can reveal that voicemail messages Mr Williams left for family and pals were deleted in the days after his death. And a rival agent may also have broken into the flat to destroy or remove evidence.
The inquest was barred from discussing Mr Williams’s work in public. But sources say he was helping on the joint monitoring network Echelon, which uses sophisticated programs to eavesdrop on terrorists and criminal gangs, particularly those in Russia.
…
A source said: “The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams’s work with America was of the most sensitive nature.
“It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time.”
Insiders claim Mr Williams, who had been given a second passport with a fresh identity, was also getting fed up with living a secret life. He is said to have loathed his spy training after having his wrist broken during one hardcore session.
…
Mr Williams, a keen cyclist originally from Anglesey, North Wales, died shortly after returning from a hacking conference in America.
He had been to see a drag queen show by himself two days before he was last seen alive, on August 15, 2010.
Eight days later his naked body was found folded into the 32in by 19in bag placed in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London.
His mobile phone and sim cards were laid out on a table. The last computer evidence of him being alive showed him looking at a cycling website.
A number of theories exist about Mr William’s death, including that of a scorned ex-lover, a “Kremlin car” driving past his house, and some bizarre sexual fantasies that Mr Williams may have played out and taken too far.
Mr Williams had no alcohol or drugs in his system when he was found, and the inquest found that he would not have been able to seal himself in the bag alone.
The Metropolitan Police refused to comment on the new revelations that Mr Clinton’s security details may have been breached by Mr Williams.
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Gloucestershire Echo : Claims GCHQ's Dr Gareth Williams 'hacked into data on former US President Bill Clinton'
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Claims GCHQ's Dr Gareth Williams 'hacked into data on former US President Bill Clinton'
August 30, 2015
The Metropolitan Police are refusing to speculate on fresh claims about the death of Cheltenham codebreaker Dr Gareth Williams, who was found dead in a padlocked holdall in 2010.
According to a report in The Sun on Sunday, GCHQ's Dr Williams had 'hacked into secret data on Bill Clinton', the former United States President.
The paper reported that the 31-year-old, who was on secondment to MI6, 'dug out the guestlist for an event the former American president was going to as a favour for a pal."
This, the paper said, was handed to the friend who was also going to the event.
And it is claimed MI6 bosses were furious about the alleged breach.
A source said: "The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams's work with America was of the most sensitive nature."
A Met spokesman told The Sun on Sunday: "The death of Gareth Williams was subject to a thorough investigation and coroner's inquest. We are not prepared to speculate."
The 31-year-old MI6 codebreaker's body was¬ found in a large holdall in the bath of his flat in Alderney Street in Pimlico, London, on August 23, 2010.
The bag was locked, from the outside.
In 2013, the Metropolitan Police issued a report following further inquiries into Dr Williams' death which concluded that he was probably alone when he died.
Previously an inquest had decided that another person or persons were probably involved, as the mathematician was found locked, from the outside, in the bag.
Coroner Fiona Wilcox ruled that the spy would not have been able to lock himself in the bag and was therefore likely to have died at somebody else's hands.
She concluded: "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."
Dr Williams was coming to the end of a three-year secondment to MI6 in London in August 2010, when he was reported missing by GCHQ, just days before he was due to return to Cheltenham.
Dr Williams, who rented a flat in Bouncers Lane for many years and was a keen cyclist and member of Cheltenham and County Cycle Club, was originally from North Wales.
His family have said they believed the coroner's view "accurately reflects the circumstances of Gareth's death.
Earlier this month, there were claims someone had broken into Dr Williams' flat to remove evidence after his death.
August 30, 2015
The Metropolitan Police are refusing to speculate on fresh claims about the death of Cheltenham codebreaker Dr Gareth Williams, who was found dead in a padlocked holdall in 2010.
According to a report in The Sun on Sunday, GCHQ's Dr Williams had 'hacked into secret data on Bill Clinton', the former United States President.
The paper reported that the 31-year-old, who was on secondment to MI6, 'dug out the guestlist for an event the former American president was going to as a favour for a pal."
This, the paper said, was handed to the friend who was also going to the event.
And it is claimed MI6 bosses were furious about the alleged breach.
A source said: "The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams's work with America was of the most sensitive nature."
A Met spokesman told The Sun on Sunday: "The death of Gareth Williams was subject to a thorough investigation and coroner's inquest. We are not prepared to speculate."
The 31-year-old MI6 codebreaker's body was¬ found in a large holdall in the bath of his flat in Alderney Street in Pimlico, London, on August 23, 2010.
The bag was locked, from the outside.
In 2013, the Metropolitan Police issued a report following further inquiries into Dr Williams' death which concluded that he was probably alone when he died.
Previously an inquest had decided that another person or persons were probably involved, as the mathematician was found locked, from the outside, in the bag.
Coroner Fiona Wilcox ruled that the spy would not have been able to lock himself in the bag and was therefore likely to have died at somebody else's hands.
She concluded: "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."
Dr Williams was coming to the end of a three-year secondment to MI6 in London in August 2010, when he was reported missing by GCHQ, just days before he was due to return to Cheltenham.
Dr Williams, who rented a flat in Bouncers Lane for many years and was a keen cyclist and member of Cheltenham and County Cycle Club, was originally from North Wales.
His family have said they believed the coroner's view "accurately reflects the circumstances of Gareth's death.
Earlier this month, there were claims someone had broken into Dr Williams' flat to remove evidence after his death.
Filed under
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Mirror : MI6 spy found in holdall 'hacked into secret data about Bill Clinton'
Sunday, August 30, 2015
MI6 spy found in holdall 'hacked into secret data about Bill Clinton'
Human Mole Peter Faulding who has cracked some of the greatest mysteries and now he reveals why he thinks there was foul play involved in the spy in the holdall
By Sam Webb | August 30, 2015
MI6 spy Gareth Williams hacked into restricted information about former US President Bill Clinton, it has been claimed.
The 31-year-old codebreaker was discovered inside a padlocked bag in a bathtub at his London home in 2010, sparking a real-life mystery worthy of any 007 thriller.
Theories about the maths genius with a taste for cross-dressing included that he was killed by foreign spooks, eliminated by fellow agents and suffocated when a sex game went disastrously wrong.
Now it is claimed he illegally obtained a guest list for an event attended by Mr Clinton as a favour for a friend who was going.
A source told the Sun on Sunday: "The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams’s work with America was of the most sensitive nature.
"It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time."
In 2013 after a three-year investigation – and despite a coroner’s ruling that Mr Williams was killed unlawfully – the Metropolitan Police decided he had locked himself inside the red holdall and no one else was involved.
But last week it was shockingly claimed unknown secret service agents could have killed the Welsh cryptographer after all – breaking in to his London flat through a skylight to clean evidence from the crime scene right under the noses of police.
A source close to the investigation revealed forensic officers noticed equipment left in the Pimlico flat had been moved, despite it being under armed guard.
Peter Faulding is the expert witness who tried – and failed – more than 300 times to fold himself into an identical bag and lock it from the outside.
A Red North face Bag similar to the one in which the body of MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams was found in
Body: A Red North face Bag similar to the one in which the body of MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams was found in
Peter, who at 5ft 6in is a similar height and build, told the inquest into Mr Williams’ death it was “an unbelievable scenario” he could have got into alone, and even escapologist Harry Houdini would have struggled.
And the latest claims have fuelled his conviction the spy was murdered in “the perfect crime”.
Peter, 52, says: “If Gareth Williams had got into that bag as part of a weird sex game he would surely have had a knife with him in case things went wrong.
“It was summer time but the heating was turned up. His iPhone was completely wiped, the bathroom door was closed, the shower screen was closed, the lights were off and the keys to the padlock were under his body.
“There was unidentified DNA found – but none of Gareth’s own DNA on the padlock, the zipper, or the bath screen, and no palm prints on the bath from lowering himself in. Nothing.
“I think it is perfectly feasible that experts in covert entry got back in across the rooftops and removed forensic evidence. Unless the flat was monitored electronically no one would have known.”
Peter, a world leader in confined spaces rescues, a specialist in underground and underwater searches and an expert witness on suffocation, went on: “I got someone to zip me into the bag with oxygen monitors and worked out how long it would have taken for Gareth to suffocate – within 30 minutes.
“Then I tried to get into the bag and zip it closed. I managed that, but there was no way I could have put the padlock on the outside too. I told the coroner I believe he was dead before he was put in the bag – that he was murdered.”
The Metropolitan Police said Mr Williams' death had been "subject to a thorough investigation" and inquests, and they were "not prepared to speculate".
Human Mole Peter Faulding who has cracked some of the greatest mysteries and now he reveals why he thinks there was foul play involved in the spy in the holdall
By Sam Webb | August 30, 2015
MI6 spy Gareth Williams hacked into restricted information about former US President Bill Clinton, it has been claimed.
The 31-year-old codebreaker was discovered inside a padlocked bag in a bathtub at his London home in 2010, sparking a real-life mystery worthy of any 007 thriller.
Theories about the maths genius with a taste for cross-dressing included that he was killed by foreign spooks, eliminated by fellow agents and suffocated when a sex game went disastrously wrong.
Now it is claimed he illegally obtained a guest list for an event attended by Mr Clinton as a favour for a friend who was going.
A source told the Sun on Sunday: "The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams’s work with America was of the most sensitive nature.
"It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time."
In 2013 after a three-year investigation – and despite a coroner’s ruling that Mr Williams was killed unlawfully – the Metropolitan Police decided he had locked himself inside the red holdall and no one else was involved.
But last week it was shockingly claimed unknown secret service agents could have killed the Welsh cryptographer after all – breaking in to his London flat through a skylight to clean evidence from the crime scene right under the noses of police.
A source close to the investigation revealed forensic officers noticed equipment left in the Pimlico flat had been moved, despite it being under armed guard.
Peter Faulding is the expert witness who tried – and failed – more than 300 times to fold himself into an identical bag and lock it from the outside.
A Red North face Bag similar to the one in which the body of MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams was found in
Body: A Red North face Bag similar to the one in which the body of MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams was found in
Peter, who at 5ft 6in is a similar height and build, told the inquest into Mr Williams’ death it was “an unbelievable scenario” he could have got into alone, and even escapologist Harry Houdini would have struggled.
And the latest claims have fuelled his conviction the spy was murdered in “the perfect crime”.
Peter, 52, says: “If Gareth Williams had got into that bag as part of a weird sex game he would surely have had a knife with him in case things went wrong.
“It was summer time but the heating was turned up. His iPhone was completely wiped, the bathroom door was closed, the shower screen was closed, the lights were off and the keys to the padlock were under his body.
“There was unidentified DNA found – but none of Gareth’s own DNA on the padlock, the zipper, or the bath screen, and no palm prints on the bath from lowering himself in. Nothing.
“I think it is perfectly feasible that experts in covert entry got back in across the rooftops and removed forensic evidence. Unless the flat was monitored electronically no one would have known.”
Peter, a world leader in confined spaces rescues, a specialist in underground and underwater searches and an expert witness on suffocation, went on: “I got someone to zip me into the bag with oxygen monitors and worked out how long it would have taken for Gareth to suffocate – within 30 minutes.
“Then I tried to get into the bag and zip it closed. I managed that, but there was no way I could have put the padlock on the outside too. I told the coroner I believe he was dead before he was put in the bag – that he was murdered.”
The Metropolitan Police said Mr Williams' death had been "subject to a thorough investigation" and inquests, and they were "not prepared to speculate".
Filed under
Bill Clinton,
Peter Faulding,
Sir John Sawers
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Daily Mail : Spy found dead in a bag 'had infuriated his MI6 bosses by illegally hacking into secret US data on Bill Clinton'
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Spy found dead in a bag 'had infuriated his MI6 bosses by illegally hacking into secret US data on Bill Clinton'
Gareth Williams's body was found in a bag at his London flat five years ago
Spy illegally hacked into secret data on former U.S. president Bill Clinton
Personal voicemail messages left by the spy were deleted after he died
By Jenny Stanton | August 30, 2015
The British spy whose body was found padlocked inside a bag in his flat had illegally hacked into secret data on former U.S. president Bill Clinton, it has been revealed.
Gareth Williams, 31, was discovered in a holdall in the bath at his London home five years ago this month, but the mystery surrounding his death has never been solved.
Today, it has been revealed the spy had dug out a guest list for an event Clinton was due to attend as a favour for a friend.
The hack breached Mr Williams' security clearance and this sparked anger among MI6 bosses as tensions rose with U.S. security services over the spy's transatlantic work, The Sun on Sunday has reported.
A source said: 'The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams' work with America was of the most sensitive nature.
'It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time.'
The paper has also reported that voicemail messages Mr Williams, a maths genius and expert cryptographer, left for family and friends were deleted shortly after his death.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that detectives who investigated the mysterious death believe he was murdered and that his killers then broke back in through a skylight to cover their tracks.
The claim centres on the revelation that part of the forensic equipment placed in the flat after the body was found was moved – despite the fact the building was under armed police guard.
The theory supports his family’s suspicions he was murdered by ‘agents specialising in the dark arts of the secret services’.
Mr Williams had been working with the American National Security Agency in Washington before returning to London, where he underwent training and was sent on active operations.
The exact nature of his work remains a closely guarded secret, but sources claim he dealt with equipment that tracked the flow of cash from Russia to Europe.
The technology enabled MI6 to follow money trails from bank accounts in Russia to criminal European gangs. One theory is that Mr Williams had disrupted a mafia ring closely linked to the Russian state.
Cars registered to the Russian Embassy were spotted near his Pimlico flat just days before his body was discovered on August 23, 2010.
Mr Williams was last seen alive on August 15 – a Kremlin car was seen near his property that day.
Other lines of inquiry, also dismissed by the Metropolitan Police at the time, were that he was killed by MI6 or American agents after stumbling on sensitive data, or because he threatened to make secret intelligence public.
There were also claims Mr Williams may have been killed by a lover during a bizarre sex game.
Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox, who heard the 2012 inquest into his death, criticised MI6 for failing to report that the spy had been missing for a week, saying this caused extra suffering for his family and led to the loss of forensic evidence.
The delay, for which MI6 apologised, also meant a Home Office pathologist was unable to find a cause of death.
Dr Wilcox concluded that Mr Williams’s death was ‘unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated’.
She said she was satisfied ‘on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully’, as it was likely someone else had put his body in the bag and locked it.
But a year later, Scotland Yard ended a review of the investigation, saying it was more likely Williams had locked himself in the bag and that no one else was involved.
This is despite there being no traces of Mr Williams' own DNA on the padlock of the bag he was found in. His palm prints were not found on the bathtub which held the bag.
Another theory was that Mr William's was poisoned. Former Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton was the most senior officer on the scene when he arrived at Mr Williams' flat in Pimlico on August 23, 2010.
He thought the flat was unusually warm when he arrived, claiming the heating was turned up to its maximum setting, possibly to assist with decomposition.
He said: 'If he had been poisoned, then the chemical compounds might have vanished by the time toxicology results were conducted.'
Gareth Williams's body was found in a bag at his London flat five years ago
Spy illegally hacked into secret data on former U.S. president Bill Clinton
Personal voicemail messages left by the spy were deleted after he died
By Jenny Stanton | August 30, 2015
The British spy whose body was found padlocked inside a bag in his flat had illegally hacked into secret data on former U.S. president Bill Clinton, it has been revealed.
Gareth Williams, 31, was discovered in a holdall in the bath at his London home five years ago this month, but the mystery surrounding his death has never been solved.
Today, it has been revealed the spy had dug out a guest list for an event Clinton was due to attend as a favour for a friend.
The hack breached Mr Williams' security clearance and this sparked anger among MI6 bosses as tensions rose with U.S. security services over the spy's transatlantic work, The Sun on Sunday has reported.
A source said: 'The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams' work with America was of the most sensitive nature.
'It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time.'
The paper has also reported that voicemail messages Mr Williams, a maths genius and expert cryptographer, left for family and friends were deleted shortly after his death.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that detectives who investigated the mysterious death believe he was murdered and that his killers then broke back in through a skylight to cover their tracks.
The claim centres on the revelation that part of the forensic equipment placed in the flat after the body was found was moved – despite the fact the building was under armed police guard.
The theory supports his family’s suspicions he was murdered by ‘agents specialising in the dark arts of the secret services’.
Mr Williams had been working with the American National Security Agency in Washington before returning to London, where he underwent training and was sent on active operations.
The exact nature of his work remains a closely guarded secret, but sources claim he dealt with equipment that tracked the flow of cash from Russia to Europe.
The technology enabled MI6 to follow money trails from bank accounts in Russia to criminal European gangs. One theory is that Mr Williams had disrupted a mafia ring closely linked to the Russian state.
Cars registered to the Russian Embassy were spotted near his Pimlico flat just days before his body was discovered on August 23, 2010.
Mr Williams was last seen alive on August 15 – a Kremlin car was seen near his property that day.
Other lines of inquiry, also dismissed by the Metropolitan Police at the time, were that he was killed by MI6 or American agents after stumbling on sensitive data, or because he threatened to make secret intelligence public.
There were also claims Mr Williams may have been killed by a lover during a bizarre sex game.
Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox, who heard the 2012 inquest into his death, criticised MI6 for failing to report that the spy had been missing for a week, saying this caused extra suffering for his family and led to the loss of forensic evidence.
The delay, for which MI6 apologised, also meant a Home Office pathologist was unable to find a cause of death.
Dr Wilcox concluded that Mr Williams’s death was ‘unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated’.
She said she was satisfied ‘on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully’, as it was likely someone else had put his body in the bag and locked it.
But a year later, Scotland Yard ended a review of the investigation, saying it was more likely Williams had locked himself in the bag and that no one else was involved.
This is despite there being no traces of Mr Williams' own DNA on the padlock of the bag he was found in. His palm prints were not found on the bathtub which held the bag.
Another theory was that Mr William's was poisoned. Former Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton was the most senior officer on the scene when he arrived at Mr Williams' flat in Pimlico on August 23, 2010.
He thought the flat was unusually warm when he arrived, claiming the heating was turned up to its maximum setting, possibly to assist with decomposition.
He said: 'If he had been poisoned, then the chemical compounds might have vanished by the time toxicology results were conducted.'
THEORIES SURROUNDING SPY GARETH WILLIAMS' DEATH
The Russian mafia assassinated him in a bid to stop him investigating money-laundering networks.
He was killed by MI6 or American agents after stumbling on sensitive data, or because he threatened to make secret intelligence public.
Mr Williams was killed by a lover during a bizarre sex game. It has been claimed he had close links with London's drag and bondage scenes.
The spy locked himself in the bag and no one else was involved.
He was poisoned.
Agents killed Mr Williams then got into his flat through a skylight to destroy evidence.
Filed under
Bill Clinton,
Sir John Sawers
by Winter Patriot
on Sunday, August 30, 2015 |
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Wales Online : Claims that Welsh MI6 spy who was found dead in holdall 'hacked into secret data about Bill Clinton'
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Claims that Welsh MI6 spy who was found dead in holdall 'hacked into secret data about Bill Clinton'
Gareth Williams, from Anglesey, was found dead in a padlockled bag in his flat in 2010 and his death remains a mystery
August 30, 2015
MI6 spy Gareth Williams, who was found dead in a holdall, hacked into restricted information about former US President Bill Clinton, it has been claimed.
The 31-year-old from Valley, near Holyhead on Anglesey, was discovered inside a padlocked bag in a bath at his London home in 2010 and his death remains a mystery.
Theories surrounding his death include speculation that he was killed by fellow agents or suffocated during a sex game that went wrong.
Now it has been claimed that he illegally obtained a guest list for an event attended by Mr Clinton as a favour for a friend who was going.
'Diplomatic nightmare'
A source told the Sun on Sunday: “The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams’ work with America was of the most sensitive nature.
“It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time.”
In 2013, following a three-year investigation, the Metropolitan Police concluded he had locked himself inside the red holdall and no one else was involved.
In contrast, a coroner ruled that Mr Williams had been killed unlawfully.
'Evidence moved'
Last week it was claimed that unknown secret service agents could have broken into his London flat through a skylight to clean evidence from the crime scene.
A source close to the investigation said forensic officers noticed equipment left in the Pimlico flat had been moved, despite the property being under armed guard.
The source claimed special footplates, which allow officers to walk across the crime scene without contaminating evidence, appeared to have been moved on the first day of the investigation.
Detectives suggested that someone had scaled the walls of the building and climbed in through the skylight to get access to evidence left behind.
It supports Mr Williams’ family’s theory that he was murdered by secret service agents.
'Unlawful killing' - coroner's verdict
The claims also tie in with a coroner’s inquest into the death which said he was “unlawfully killed”.
A Scotland Yard review into the death of Mr Williams said he was likely to have died alone and may have been taking part in a lone sex game.
The Metropolitan Police said Mr Williams’ death had been “subject to a thorough investigation” and inquests, and they were “not prepared to speculate”.
Gareth Williams, from Anglesey, was found dead in a padlockled bag in his flat in 2010 and his death remains a mystery
August 30, 2015
MI6 spy Gareth Williams, who was found dead in a holdall, hacked into restricted information about former US President Bill Clinton, it has been claimed.
The 31-year-old from Valley, near Holyhead on Anglesey, was discovered inside a padlocked bag in a bath at his London home in 2010 and his death remains a mystery.
Theories surrounding his death include speculation that he was killed by fellow agents or suffocated during a sex game that went wrong.
Now it has been claimed that he illegally obtained a guest list for an event attended by Mr Clinton as a favour for a friend who was going.
'Diplomatic nightmare'
A source told the Sun on Sunday: “The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams’ work with America was of the most sensitive nature.
“It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time.”
In 2013, following a three-year investigation, the Metropolitan Police concluded he had locked himself inside the red holdall and no one else was involved.
In contrast, a coroner ruled that Mr Williams had been killed unlawfully.
'Evidence moved'
Last week it was claimed that unknown secret service agents could have broken into his London flat through a skylight to clean evidence from the crime scene.
A source close to the investigation said forensic officers noticed equipment left in the Pimlico flat had been moved, despite the property being under armed guard.
The source claimed special footplates, which allow officers to walk across the crime scene without contaminating evidence, appeared to have been moved on the first day of the investigation.
Detectives suggested that someone had scaled the walls of the building and climbed in through the skylight to get access to evidence left behind.
It supports Mr Williams’ family’s theory that he was murdered by secret service agents.
'Unlawful killing' - coroner's verdict
The claims also tie in with a coroner’s inquest into the death which said he was “unlawfully killed”.
A Scotland Yard review into the death of Mr Williams said he was likely to have died alone and may have been taking part in a lone sex game.
The Metropolitan Police said Mr Williams’ death had been “subject to a thorough investigation” and inquests, and they were “not prepared to speculate”.
Filed under
Bill Clinton,
Sir John Sawers
by Winter Patriot
on Sunday, August 30, 2015 |
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WP home
Mirror : M16 spy found in holdall mystery: Human mole crime expert reveals the secrets
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
M16 spy found in holdall mystery: Human mole crime expert reveals the secrets
Human Mole Peter Faulding who has cracked some of the greatest mysteries and now he reveals why he thinks there was foul play involved in the spy in the holdall
By Rachael Bletchly | August 18, 2015
When the naked, decomposing body of MI6 spy Gareth Williams was discovered inside a padlocked bag in his bathtub it sparked a real-life mystery worthy of any 007 thriller.
Had the 31-year-old codebreaker been killed by foreign spooks? Was he eliminated by fellow agents? Or had the maths genius with a taste for cross-dressing suffocated when a sex game went disastrously wrong?
In 2013 after a three-year investigation – and despite a coroner’s ruling that Mr Williams was killed unlawfully – the Metropolitan Police decided he had locked himself inside the red holdall and no one else was involved.
But this week it was shockingly claimed unknown secret service agents DID kill the Welsh cryptographer after all – before breaking in to his London flat through a skylight to clean evidence from the crime scene right under the noses of police.
A source close to the investigation revealed forensic officers noticed equipment left in the Pimlico flat had been moved, despite it being under armed guard.
This latest twist in the Spy in the Bag story will sound far-fetched to many.
Not to Peter Faulding.
He is the expert witness who tried – and failed – more than 300 times to fold himself into an identical bag and lock it from the outside.
Peter, who at 5ft 6in is a similar height and build, told the inquest into Mr Williams’ death it was “an unbelievable scenario” he could have got in alone, and even escapologist Harry Houdini would have struggled.
And the latest claims have fuelled his conviction the spy was murdered in “the perfect crime”.
Peter, 52, says: “If Gareth Williams had got into that bag as part of a weird sex game he would surely have had a knife with him in case things went wrong.
“It was summer time but the heating was turned up. His iPhone was completely wiped, the bathroom door was closed, the shower screen was closed, the lights were off and the keys to the padlock were under his body.
“There was unidentified DNA found – but none of Gareth’s own DNA on the padlock, the zipper, or the bath screen, and no palm prints on the bath from lowering himself in. Nothing.
“I think it is perfectly feasible that experts in covert entry got back in across the rooftops and removed forensic evidence. Unless the flat was monitored electronically no one would have known.”
Peter, a world leader in confined spaces rescues, a specialist in underground and underwater searches and an expert witness on suffocation, goes on: “I got someone to zip me into the bag with oxygen monitors and worked out how long it would have taken for Gareth to suffocate – within 30 minutes.
“Then I tried to get into the bag and zip it closed. I managed that, but there was no way I could have put the padlock on the outside too. I told the coroner I believe he was dead before he was put in the bag – that he was murdered.”
Peter has been called in to offer expert advice on many other high-profile cases after a childhood hobby led to a fascinating career in the world of murder, danger and dark secrets.
From the age of five he spent his weekends deep underground, digging through rocks and burrowing through collapsed tunnels.
In the 1960s his caver dad, John, had rediscovered a network of ancient flint mines under the Surrey countryside and Peter inherited his passion for exploring the subterranean wonderland.
Speaking from his home in West Sussex, dad-of-three Peter says: “I was very close to my dad and just loved being underground with him.
“Whenever we found an opening in the rock falls dad would use a candle to check the oxygen levels were OK and then he’d squeeze me though a small gap to see what was on the other side. Some people might think it was an odd pastime for a kid, but I thought it was amazing.
“I’d find myself walking down passages no one else had been in since the 1400s. I was so comfortable underground I even got nicknamed the Human Mole.”
Today the Human Mole is the man emergency services call on to help them out of tight spots – whether it’s evicting environmental protesters from tunnels, locating bodies, digging survivors from collapsed buildings, or rescuing people from perilous cliff faces.
In 1995 the former Parachute Regiment reservist founded Specialist Group International. He now employs 40 people, many ex-military, with an arsenal of cutting-edge kit, including boats, 4x4 vehicles, a helicopter, remote control submarines, side-scanning sonar, diving and camera equipment.
He has advised the Home Office and FBI on search techniques and helps train police, fire and ambulance services.
Peter trained as a radar engineer and worked for the Civil Aviation Authority before training as a commercial diver.
In 1996 he advised police during high-profile protests against the Newbury by-pass. Around 7,000 environmental campaigners, including the notorious “Swampy” (Daniel Hooper), occupied trees and dug tunnels and Peter helped bailiffs evict them safely.
Then he got a call from police in Devon, where Swampy and his pals were dug in again, trying to stop another road.
“They were in real danger of suffocation but didn’t believe the police,” says Peter.
“As we dug towards them they’d fill their tunnel with soil and the oxygen levels were dangerously low. They were also smoking dope. I was pleading with them to come out but they were saying ‘We’re OK, man, we’re fine’.
“Eventually I managed to build a rapport and convinced them I really wasn’t bluffing – they were going to die. So they came out and we shook hands.”
But Peter has worked on many cases which ended in tragedy.
In October 2012 he joined the hunt for missing five-year-old April Jones in Machynlleth, Wales. He says: “We did a lot of river work then aerial reconnaissance.
“We found a remote caravan which we went to search hoping she might be there – abducted, but alive. We did what we could, but poor April was never going to be found.”
Local man Mark Bridger, 46, was found guilty of her abduction and murder in May 2013.
Peter tells the story of two divers who died at a specialist centre in Chepstow.
He says: “Police realised they had snuck in on a Friday evening after the place had shut, rather than pay. That cost them their lives. The man was only an average diver and the woman with him was a beginner.
“But the lake – an old quarry – is used to train commercial divers and was too deep even for police teams to search.
“I used our mini-submarine to dive down and found them at 230ft, tied together with a buddy line. We had to drag their bodies, suspended from the boat, to a platform to recover them.”
Peter adds: “Afterwards we were exhausted and sitting around a table when the mum arrived. Very emotionally, she thanked us for finding them – and every single one of us had tears rolling down our cheeks.
“Then there was the chap who disappeared after a row with his wife. He was missing for 18 months. Police searched the river 12 times but found nothing. They were about to close the case when I reviewed it with the senior investigating officer.
“Within 10 minutes of starting a scan up the river with the sonar I found two cars. The first was a stolen vehicle from years back but the second one contained the missing man’s body.
“He’d committed suicide by driving into the water.”
As the Human Mole continues saving lives and digging out the truth of bizarre deaths and disappearances, he admits he will always be baffled by that Spy in the Bag Case.
“I don’t think we’ll ever know why he was killed but I’ll always be wondering,” he says. “It’s the most puzzling case I have ever dealt with.”
Swampy's protest, 1996
Bypass construction protester Swampy (Daniel Hooper) dug himself into a tunnel in Honiton, Devon, and Peter was brought in to get him out safely.
“As we dug towards them they’d fill their tunnel with soil and oxygen levels were dangerously low. They were also smoking dope. I used a chimney rod with a hose to pump air through. They would have died within about two hours without it.”
Missing April Jones, 2012
“We had a team of five, our helicopter, diving gear and a remote submarine with side-scanning sonar equipment.
We did a lot of river work then aerial reconnaissance. We found a remote caravan which we went to search hoping she might be there, alive. But poor April was never going to be found.”
Human Mole Peter Faulding who has cracked some of the greatest mysteries and now he reveals why he thinks there was foul play involved in the spy in the holdall
By Rachael Bletchly | August 18, 2015
When the naked, decomposing body of MI6 spy Gareth Williams was discovered inside a padlocked bag in his bathtub it sparked a real-life mystery worthy of any 007 thriller.
Had the 31-year-old codebreaker been killed by foreign spooks? Was he eliminated by fellow agents? Or had the maths genius with a taste for cross-dressing suffocated when a sex game went disastrously wrong?
In 2013 after a three-year investigation – and despite a coroner’s ruling that Mr Williams was killed unlawfully – the Metropolitan Police decided he had locked himself inside the red holdall and no one else was involved.
But this week it was shockingly claimed unknown secret service agents DID kill the Welsh cryptographer after all – before breaking in to his London flat through a skylight to clean evidence from the crime scene right under the noses of police.
A source close to the investigation revealed forensic officers noticed equipment left in the Pimlico flat had been moved, despite it being under armed guard.
This latest twist in the Spy in the Bag story will sound far-fetched to many.
Not to Peter Faulding.
He is the expert witness who tried – and failed – more than 300 times to fold himself into an identical bag and lock it from the outside.
Peter, who at 5ft 6in is a similar height and build, told the inquest into Mr Williams’ death it was “an unbelievable scenario” he could have got in alone, and even escapologist Harry Houdini would have struggled.
And the latest claims have fuelled his conviction the spy was murdered in “the perfect crime”.
Peter, 52, says: “If Gareth Williams had got into that bag as part of a weird sex game he would surely have had a knife with him in case things went wrong.
“It was summer time but the heating was turned up. His iPhone was completely wiped, the bathroom door was closed, the shower screen was closed, the lights were off and the keys to the padlock were under his body.
“There was unidentified DNA found – but none of Gareth’s own DNA on the padlock, the zipper, or the bath screen, and no palm prints on the bath from lowering himself in. Nothing.
“I think it is perfectly feasible that experts in covert entry got back in across the rooftops and removed forensic evidence. Unless the flat was monitored electronically no one would have known.”
Peter, a world leader in confined spaces rescues, a specialist in underground and underwater searches and an expert witness on suffocation, goes on: “I got someone to zip me into the bag with oxygen monitors and worked out how long it would have taken for Gareth to suffocate – within 30 minutes.
“Then I tried to get into the bag and zip it closed. I managed that, but there was no way I could have put the padlock on the outside too. I told the coroner I believe he was dead before he was put in the bag – that he was murdered.”
Peter has been called in to offer expert advice on many other high-profile cases after a childhood hobby led to a fascinating career in the world of murder, danger and dark secrets.
From the age of five he spent his weekends deep underground, digging through rocks and burrowing through collapsed tunnels.
In the 1960s his caver dad, John, had rediscovered a network of ancient flint mines under the Surrey countryside and Peter inherited his passion for exploring the subterranean wonderland.
Speaking from his home in West Sussex, dad-of-three Peter says: “I was very close to my dad and just loved being underground with him.
“Whenever we found an opening in the rock falls dad would use a candle to check the oxygen levels were OK and then he’d squeeze me though a small gap to see what was on the other side. Some people might think it was an odd pastime for a kid, but I thought it was amazing.
“I’d find myself walking down passages no one else had been in since the 1400s. I was so comfortable underground I even got nicknamed the Human Mole.”
Today the Human Mole is the man emergency services call on to help them out of tight spots – whether it’s evicting environmental protesters from tunnels, locating bodies, digging survivors from collapsed buildings, or rescuing people from perilous cliff faces.
In 1995 the former Parachute Regiment reservist founded Specialist Group International. He now employs 40 people, many ex-military, with an arsenal of cutting-edge kit, including boats, 4x4 vehicles, a helicopter, remote control submarines, side-scanning sonar, diving and camera equipment.
He has advised the Home Office and FBI on search techniques and helps train police, fire and ambulance services.
Peter trained as a radar engineer and worked for the Civil Aviation Authority before training as a commercial diver.
In 1996 he advised police during high-profile protests against the Newbury by-pass. Around 7,000 environmental campaigners, including the notorious “Swampy” (Daniel Hooper), occupied trees and dug tunnels and Peter helped bailiffs evict them safely.
Then he got a call from police in Devon, where Swampy and his pals were dug in again, trying to stop another road.
“They were in real danger of suffocation but didn’t believe the police,” says Peter.
“As we dug towards them they’d fill their tunnel with soil and the oxygen levels were dangerously low. They were also smoking dope. I was pleading with them to come out but they were saying ‘We’re OK, man, we’re fine’.
“Eventually I managed to build a rapport and convinced them I really wasn’t bluffing – they were going to die. So they came out and we shook hands.”
But Peter has worked on many cases which ended in tragedy.
In October 2012 he joined the hunt for missing five-year-old April Jones in Machynlleth, Wales. He says: “We did a lot of river work then aerial reconnaissance.
“We found a remote caravan which we went to search hoping she might be there – abducted, but alive. We did what we could, but poor April was never going to be found.”
Local man Mark Bridger, 46, was found guilty of her abduction and murder in May 2013.
Peter tells the story of two divers who died at a specialist centre in Chepstow.
He says: “Police realised they had snuck in on a Friday evening after the place had shut, rather than pay. That cost them their lives. The man was only an average diver and the woman with him was a beginner.
“But the lake – an old quarry – is used to train commercial divers and was too deep even for police teams to search.
“I used our mini-submarine to dive down and found them at 230ft, tied together with a buddy line. We had to drag their bodies, suspended from the boat, to a platform to recover them.”
Peter adds: “Afterwards we were exhausted and sitting around a table when the mum arrived. Very emotionally, she thanked us for finding them – and every single one of us had tears rolling down our cheeks.
“Then there was the chap who disappeared after a row with his wife. He was missing for 18 months. Police searched the river 12 times but found nothing. They were about to close the case when I reviewed it with the senior investigating officer.
“Within 10 minutes of starting a scan up the river with the sonar I found two cars. The first was a stolen vehicle from years back but the second one contained the missing man’s body.
“He’d committed suicide by driving into the water.”
As the Human Mole continues saving lives and digging out the truth of bizarre deaths and disappearances, he admits he will always be baffled by that Spy in the Bag Case.
“I don’t think we’ll ever know why he was killed but I’ll always be wondering,” he says. “It’s the most puzzling case I have ever dealt with.”
Swampy's protest, 1996
Bypass construction protester Swampy (Daniel Hooper) dug himself into a tunnel in Honiton, Devon, and Peter was brought in to get him out safely.
“As we dug towards them they’d fill their tunnel with soil and oxygen levels were dangerously low. They were also smoking dope. I used a chimney rod with a hose to pump air through. They would have died within about two hours without it.”
Missing April Jones, 2012
“We had a team of five, our helicopter, diving gear and a remote submarine with side-scanning sonar equipment.
We did a lot of river work then aerial reconnaissance. We found a remote caravan which we went to search hoping she might be there, alive. But poor April was never going to be found.”
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RT : ‘Body-in-a-bag’ MI6 spy: Was he killed by secret service after uncovering money laundering?
Monday, August 17, 2015
‘Body-in-a-bag’ MI6 spy: Was he killed by secret service after uncovering money laundering?
August 17, 2015
Police investigating the mysterious death of an MI6 agent, whose body was discovered in unusual circumstances in his London flat, suspect he was murdered and that his killers returned to his apartment through a skylight to hide the evidence.
The body of British spy Gareth Williams, 31, was found padlocked in a holdall bag in his bath by detectives in August 2010.
Precise details of his work remain cloaked in secrecy, but sources allege he worked with equipment that tracked financial flows from Russia to Europe. The technology supposedly allowed MI6 to analyze money trails from Russian bank accounts to criminal syndicates in Europe.
Fresh revelations relating to his death surfaced Saturday, after a source told the Daily Mail that Scotland Yard officials believe an agent from another secret service broke into his apartment to conceal the evidence.
The new claim alleges that forensic equipment laid down in the flat after Williams’ body was discovered was moved while the building remained under the surveillance of armed police.
Special footplates, which enable detectives to make their way across a crime scene without causing contamination, were repositioned just over a day into the investigation.
After discovering this fact, Scotland Yard officials concluded the building’s walls had been scaled and Williams’ flat had been broken into via the skylight.
The force also drew the conclusion that those who had intruded had done so out of desperation to cover their tracks.
The police investigation at the time concluded that Williams died accidentally after a sex game went wrong.
But this latest line of inquiry contradicts these findings and raises fresh questions about how Williams, a skilled cryptographer with a high aptitude for mathematics, was killed.
The spy had been working alongside the US National Security Agency (NSA) in Washington before making his way to London, where he was given specialist training and dispatched on spy missions.
It has been suggested Williams was murdered by CIA or MI6 agents after uncovering sensitive data or after threatening to publish clandestine intelligence.
Another theory discussed in the UK media is that Williams may have disrupted a crime ring linked to Russian officials. Cars registered to the Russian Embassy were seen near his Pimlico apartment several days before his body was found, while a Russian-linked car was reportedly seen near his flat the day he was murdered, the Daily Mail reports.
Both theories were dismissed by Scotland Yard in late 2010.
Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox sharply criticized MI6 for neglecting to report that Williams had been missing for seven days. Wilcox, who presided over the 2012 inquest into his death, said MI6’s failure to contact his family sooner caused them additional suffering and led to a loss of valuable forensic evidence.
The delay, for which MI6 offered an apology, also meant a pathologist hired by the Home Office was unable to uncover the cause of Williams’ death.
Wilcox came to the conclusion that Williams’ death was “unnatural and likely to have been criminally meditated.” She added that “on the balance of probabilities … Gareth was killed unlawfully” because it was unlikely he had locked himself inside the bag in which he was found.
However, in 2013 the Met’s investigation into Williams’ death came to a close, after detectives concluded he had locked himself in the bag as part of a sex game.
Despite this, Williams’ family has long believed his flat was “steam-cleaned” by spies after his death. Since the spy’s case was reopened, Scotland Yard’s latest inquiry appears to support this theory. The Williams’ family lawyer, Anthony O’Toole, previously told a pre-inquest hearing he believed a third party was present when Williams died and subsequently removed the evidence.
“The impression of the family is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specializing in the dark arts of the secret services, or evidence has been removed post-mortem,” he told the Westminster Coroner’s Court in 2012.
In the aftermath of Williams’ death, the coroner was not informed that the footplates had been moved or of detectives’ suspicion that the spy’s flat had been broken into.
“The forensics officer was adamant that nobody was allowed in or out of the crime scene, so when he turned up the following day to find the footplates had been moved an investigation was launched. The only way anybody could have got into that building was to have scaled the walls and got in through the skylight,” an intelligence source told the Daily Mail.
“This was never revealed, as it was pretty embarrassing for the Met. Somebody appears to have broken in, perhaps cleaned up and got out again while officers were guarding the entrance to the flat.”
August 17, 2015
Police investigating the mysterious death of an MI6 agent, whose body was discovered in unusual circumstances in his London flat, suspect he was murdered and that his killers returned to his apartment through a skylight to hide the evidence.
The body of British spy Gareth Williams, 31, was found padlocked in a holdall bag in his bath by detectives in August 2010.
Precise details of his work remain cloaked in secrecy, but sources allege he worked with equipment that tracked financial flows from Russia to Europe. The technology supposedly allowed MI6 to analyze money trails from Russian bank accounts to criminal syndicates in Europe.
Fresh revelations relating to his death surfaced Saturday, after a source told the Daily Mail that Scotland Yard officials believe an agent from another secret service broke into his apartment to conceal the evidence.
The new claim alleges that forensic equipment laid down in the flat after Williams’ body was discovered was moved while the building remained under the surveillance of armed police.
Special footplates, which enable detectives to make their way across a crime scene without causing contamination, were repositioned just over a day into the investigation.
After discovering this fact, Scotland Yard officials concluded the building’s walls had been scaled and Williams’ flat had been broken into via the skylight.
The force also drew the conclusion that those who had intruded had done so out of desperation to cover their tracks.
The police investigation at the time concluded that Williams died accidentally after a sex game went wrong.
But this latest line of inquiry contradicts these findings and raises fresh questions about how Williams, a skilled cryptographer with a high aptitude for mathematics, was killed.
The spy had been working alongside the US National Security Agency (NSA) in Washington before making his way to London, where he was given specialist training and dispatched on spy missions.
It has been suggested Williams was murdered by CIA or MI6 agents after uncovering sensitive data or after threatening to publish clandestine intelligence.
Another theory discussed in the UK media is that Williams may have disrupted a crime ring linked to Russian officials. Cars registered to the Russian Embassy were seen near his Pimlico apartment several days before his body was found, while a Russian-linked car was reportedly seen near his flat the day he was murdered, the Daily Mail reports.
Both theories were dismissed by Scotland Yard in late 2010.
Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox sharply criticized MI6 for neglecting to report that Williams had been missing for seven days. Wilcox, who presided over the 2012 inquest into his death, said MI6’s failure to contact his family sooner caused them additional suffering and led to a loss of valuable forensic evidence.
The delay, for which MI6 offered an apology, also meant a pathologist hired by the Home Office was unable to uncover the cause of Williams’ death.
Wilcox came to the conclusion that Williams’ death was “unnatural and likely to have been criminally meditated.” She added that “on the balance of probabilities … Gareth was killed unlawfully” because it was unlikely he had locked himself inside the bag in which he was found.
However, in 2013 the Met’s investigation into Williams’ death came to a close, after detectives concluded he had locked himself in the bag as part of a sex game.
Despite this, Williams’ family has long believed his flat was “steam-cleaned” by spies after his death. Since the spy’s case was reopened, Scotland Yard’s latest inquiry appears to support this theory. The Williams’ family lawyer, Anthony O’Toole, previously told a pre-inquest hearing he believed a third party was present when Williams died and subsequently removed the evidence.
“The impression of the family is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specializing in the dark arts of the secret services, or evidence has been removed post-mortem,” he told the Westminster Coroner’s Court in 2012.
In the aftermath of Williams’ death, the coroner was not informed that the footplates had been moved or of detectives’ suspicion that the spy’s flat had been broken into.
“The forensics officer was adamant that nobody was allowed in or out of the crime scene, so when he turned up the following day to find the footplates had been moved an investigation was launched. The only way anybody could have got into that building was to have scaled the walls and got in through the skylight,” an intelligence source told the Daily Mail.
“This was never revealed, as it was pretty embarrassing for the Met. Somebody appears to have broken in, perhaps cleaned up and got out again while officers were guarding the entrance to the flat.”
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Daily Star : Spy killers 'returned to the scene' according to cops
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Spy killers 'returned to the scene' according to cops
By Benjamin Russell | August 16, 2015
Detectives reckon they may have finally cracked the five-year mystery of Gareth Williams, who was found padlocked in a holdall in the bath at his London flat in 2010.
Investigators claim spooks from a secret crime cell killed him – and then broke back into his home through a skylight to get rid of the evidence.
Sources close to the probe even suggested they may have tried to make it look like he died in a sex game gone wrong.
It comes after it was revealed forensic equipment put in place after his body was found was moved – even though the flat was being guarded by armed police.
After the first day of the investigation, footplates which allow investigators to walk without contaminating the crime scene were found to have been disturbed.
A coroner’s inquest said the code-breaker was “unlawfully killed” but it is still unknown how he met his end.
His family believe he was murdered by “agents specialising in the dark arts of the secret services”.
Gareth was employed by Government listening post GCHQ in Cheltenham, Glos.
But he was working temporarily at the HQ of the MI6 Secret Intelligence Service near his Pimlico flat.
Detectives believe his work, gathering secret information on Britain’s enemies abroad, would have made him a target for terrorists and rival spies.
By Benjamin Russell | August 16, 2015
Detectives reckon they may have finally cracked the five-year mystery of Gareth Williams, who was found padlocked in a holdall in the bath at his London flat in 2010.
Investigators claim spooks from a secret crime cell killed him – and then broke back into his home through a skylight to get rid of the evidence.
Sources close to the probe even suggested they may have tried to make it look like he died in a sex game gone wrong.
It comes after it was revealed forensic equipment put in place after his body was found was moved – even though the flat was being guarded by armed police.
After the first day of the investigation, footplates which allow investigators to walk without contaminating the crime scene were found to have been disturbed.
A coroner’s inquest said the code-breaker was “unlawfully killed” but it is still unknown how he met his end.
His family believe he was murdered by “agents specialising in the dark arts of the secret services”.
Gareth was employed by Government listening post GCHQ in Cheltenham, Glos.
But he was working temporarily at the HQ of the MI6 Secret Intelligence Service near his Pimlico flat.
Detectives believe his work, gathering secret information on Britain’s enemies abroad, would have made him a target for terrorists and rival spies.
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Mirror : Gareth Williams: Was M16 body-in-the-bag spy 'killed by agents who crept into his home through a skylight'?
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Gareth Williams: Was M16 body-in-the-bag spy 'killed by agents who crept into his home through a skylight'?
By Richard Wheatstone | August 16, 2015
The MI6 spook who found dead inside a padlocked holdall could have been killed by agents who broke into his flat through a skylight, detectives believe.
Mystery has surrounded the death of Gareth Williams since the discovery of his body in a sports bag in his bath.
Met Police concluded he most likely died alone after locking himself inside it.
But detectives who probed the 2010 case believe spies may have broken back into Mr Williams’ Central London flat through a skylight to destroy evidence after his body had been removed.
A source said to be at the heart of the probe allegedly claimed footplates placed inside the flat appeared to have been moved after the first day of the investigation.
The forensic equipment allows officers to cross a crime scene without contaminating it.
And detectives concluded someone must have scaled the walls of the building – which was under armed guard – then entered through the skylight to clear up their tracks.
It supports a theory from Mr Williams’ family that a third party was involved in the spy’s death.
Their lawyer Anthony O’Toole told a 2012 pre-inquest hearing at Westminster coroner’s court: “The impression of the family is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services, or evidence has been removed postmortem.”
And a coroner’s inquest into the death later said the spy was “unlawfully killed”.
But a Scotland Yard review into the case said Mr Williams, who had a wardrobe full of women’s clothes, was likely to have died alone and may have been taking part in a solo sex game.
By Richard Wheatstone | August 16, 2015
The MI6 spook who found dead inside a padlocked holdall could have been killed by agents who broke into his flat through a skylight, detectives believe.
Mystery has surrounded the death of Gareth Williams since the discovery of his body in a sports bag in his bath.
Met Police concluded he most likely died alone after locking himself inside it.
But detectives who probed the 2010 case believe spies may have broken back into Mr Williams’ Central London flat through a skylight to destroy evidence after his body had been removed.
A source said to be at the heart of the probe allegedly claimed footplates placed inside the flat appeared to have been moved after the first day of the investigation.
The forensic equipment allows officers to cross a crime scene without contaminating it.
And detectives concluded someone must have scaled the walls of the building – which was under armed guard – then entered through the skylight to clear up their tracks.
It supports a theory from Mr Williams’ family that a third party was involved in the spy’s death.
Their lawyer Anthony O’Toole told a 2012 pre-inquest hearing at Westminster coroner’s court: “The impression of the family is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services, or evidence has been removed postmortem.”
And a coroner’s inquest into the death later said the spy was “unlawfully killed”.
But a Scotland Yard review into the case said Mr Williams, who had a wardrobe full of women’s clothes, was likely to have died alone and may have been taking part in a solo sex game.
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Gloucestershire Echo : Did killers of GCHQ codebreaker Gareth Williams break back into his flat to destroy evidence?
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Did killers of GCHQ codebreaker Gareth Williams break back into his flat to destroy evidence?
August 16, 2015
GCHQ codebreaker Gareth Williams, who was found dead in a padlocked bag in his London flat, was 'murdered' and then someone broke back into his home to cover their tracks,
The Mail on Sunday reported today that a senior detective claims it was an agent from an' unknown secret service' that broke into Dr Williams' home to destroy or to remove evidence.
The 31-year-old MI6 codebreaker's body was found in a large holdall in the bath of his flat in Alderney Street in Pimlico, London, on August 23, 2010.
The bag was locked, from the outside
Now, it is claimed some forensic equipment, footplates to allow officers to move through a crime scene without contaminating it, that were left in the flat by investigators had been moved.
The Mail on Sunday said this was despite the flat being under armed guard.
And it led Scotland Yard to think that someone had climbed up the building's wall and gained entry through the skylight to clear evidence.
An intelligence source told the paper: "The forensics officer was adamant that nobody was allowed in or out of the crime scene, so when he turned up the following day to find the footplates had been moved an investigation was launched.
"The only way anybody could have got into that building was to have scaled the walls and got in through the skylight."
The source added that someone appears to have broken in, potentially cleaned up, and then got out again while the entrance to the flat was under guard.
In 2013, the Metropolitan Police issued a report following further inquiries into Dr Williams' death which concluded that he was probably alone when he died.
Previously an inquest had decided that another person or persons were probably involved, as the mathematician was found locked, from the outside, in the bag.
Coroner Fiona Wilcox ruled that the spy would not have been able to lock himself in the bag and was therefore likely to have died at somebody else's hands.
She concluded: "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."
Dr Williams was coming to the end of a three-year secondment to MI6 in London in August 2010, when he was reported missing by GCHQ, just days before he was due to return to Cheltenham.
Dr Williams, who rented a flat in Bouncers Lane for many years and was a keen cyclist and member of Cheltenham and County Cycle Club, was originally from North Wales.
His family have said they believed the coroner's view "accurately reflects the circumstances of Gareth's death.
August 16, 2015
GCHQ codebreaker Gareth Williams, who was found dead in a padlocked bag in his London flat, was 'murdered' and then someone broke back into his home to cover their tracks,
The Mail on Sunday reported today that a senior detective claims it was an agent from an' unknown secret service' that broke into Dr Williams' home to destroy or to remove evidence.
The 31-year-old MI6 codebreaker's body was found in a large holdall in the bath of his flat in Alderney Street in Pimlico, London, on August 23, 2010.
The bag was locked, from the outside
Now, it is claimed some forensic equipment, footplates to allow officers to move through a crime scene without contaminating it, that were left in the flat by investigators had been moved.
The Mail on Sunday said this was despite the flat being under armed guard.
And it led Scotland Yard to think that someone had climbed up the building's wall and gained entry through the skylight to clear evidence.
An intelligence source told the paper: "The forensics officer was adamant that nobody was allowed in or out of the crime scene, so when he turned up the following day to find the footplates had been moved an investigation was launched.
"The only way anybody could have got into that building was to have scaled the walls and got in through the skylight."
The source added that someone appears to have broken in, potentially cleaned up, and then got out again while the entrance to the flat was under guard.
In 2013, the Metropolitan Police issued a report following further inquiries into Dr Williams' death which concluded that he was probably alone when he died.
Previously an inquest had decided that another person or persons were probably involved, as the mathematician was found locked, from the outside, in the bag.
Coroner Fiona Wilcox ruled that the spy would not have been able to lock himself in the bag and was therefore likely to have died at somebody else's hands.
She concluded: "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."
Dr Williams was coming to the end of a three-year secondment to MI6 in London in August 2010, when he was reported missing by GCHQ, just days before he was due to return to Cheltenham.
Dr Williams, who rented a flat in Bouncers Lane for many years and was a keen cyclist and member of Cheltenham and County Cycle Club, was originally from North Wales.
His family have said they believed the coroner's view "accurately reflects the circumstances of Gareth's death.
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Wales Online : MI6 spy Gareth Williams 'killed by agents who then broke into his flat to destroy evidence'
Sunday, August 16, 2015
MI6 spy Gareth Williams 'killed by agents who then broke into his flat to destroy evidence'
Gareth Williams was found dead in a padlockled bag in his flat in 2010 and his death remains a mystery
By Ruth Mansfield | August 16, 2015
Detectives believe an MI6 spy found dead in a padlocked bag was killed by agents who broke back into his flat after the body was found to cover their tracks.
Mystery has surrounded the death of Welshman Gareth Williams ever since his body was found inside a padlocked bag in his central London flat in 2010.
The Met Police concluded Mr Williams, from Valley, near Holyhead on Anglesey, is most likely to have died alone after locking himself in the holdall.
But detectives who probed his mysterious death believe agents may have broken back into his flat through a skylight to destroy evidence to cover their tracks after his body has been moved.
According to the Mail on Sunday, a source ‘at the heart of the investigation’ is said to have claimed forensic equipment placed in the flat was removed, despite the fact the property was under armed guard.
The source said special footplates - which allow officers to walk across the crime scene without contaminating evidence - appeared to have been moved on the first day of the investigation.
Detectives concluded someone must have scaled the walls of the building and climbed in through the skylight to get access to evidence left behind.
It supports Mr Williams’ family’s theory that he was murdered by secret service agents.
The claims also tie in with a coroner’s inquest into the death which said he was “unlawfully killed”
But a Scotland Yard review into the death of Mr Williams – who had a wardrobe full of women’s clothes - said he was likely to have died alone and may have been taking part in a lone sex game.
Gareth Williams was found dead in a padlockled bag in his flat in 2010 and his death remains a mystery
By Ruth Mansfield | August 16, 2015
Detectives believe an MI6 spy found dead in a padlocked bag was killed by agents who broke back into his flat after the body was found to cover their tracks.
Mystery has surrounded the death of Welshman Gareth Williams ever since his body was found inside a padlocked bag in his central London flat in 2010.
The Met Police concluded Mr Williams, from Valley, near Holyhead on Anglesey, is most likely to have died alone after locking himself in the holdall.
But detectives who probed his mysterious death believe agents may have broken back into his flat through a skylight to destroy evidence to cover their tracks after his body has been moved.
According to the Mail on Sunday, a source ‘at the heart of the investigation’ is said to have claimed forensic equipment placed in the flat was removed, despite the fact the property was under armed guard.
The source said special footplates - which allow officers to walk across the crime scene without contaminating evidence - appeared to have been moved on the first day of the investigation.
Detectives concluded someone must have scaled the walls of the building and climbed in through the skylight to get access to evidence left behind.
It supports Mr Williams’ family’s theory that he was murdered by secret service agents.
The claims also tie in with a coroner’s inquest into the death which said he was “unlawfully killed”
But a Scotland Yard review into the death of Mr Williams – who had a wardrobe full of women’s clothes - said he was likely to have died alone and may have been taking part in a lone sex game.
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Daily Mail : Agents ‘killed the body-in-bag spy... then got into flat through skylight to destroy evidence’: New theory could solve the mystery five years later
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Agents ‘killed the body-in-bag spy... then got into flat through skylight to destroy evidence’: New theory could solve the mystery five years later
Gareth Williams' body was found in his London flat in August 2010
But Mail on Sunday can now reveal unknown agent may be behind death
Special footplates were moved after the first day of the investigation
Led Scotland Yard to believe someone had broken into the crime scene
By Robert Verkaik for The Mail on Sunday | published: August 15, 2015 | updated: August 16, 2015
Detectives who investigated the mysterious death of a British spy found padlocked in a bag in his flat believe he was murdered and that his killers then broke back in through a skylight to cover their tracks.
Gareth Williams, 31, was discovered in a holdall in the bath at his London home five years ago this month. Now a source at the heart of the investigation has told The Mail on Sunday that Scotland Yard detectives believe an agent from an unknown secret service broke into the victim’s flat to destroy or remove evidence.
The new claim centres on the revelation that part of the forensic equipment placed in the flat after the body was found was moved – despite the fact the building was under armed police guard.
Special footplates, which allow officers to walk across a crime scene without contaminating it, were moved after the first day of the investigation. This led Scotland Yard to conclude that someone must have scaled the building’s walls and broken in through the skylight to cover their tracks. This so far unknown line of inquiry raises questions about how Mr Williams, a maths genius and expert cryptographer, really met his end. It also supports his family’s suspicions he was murdered by ‘agents specialising in the dark arts of the secret services’.
Mr Williams had been working with the American National Security Agency in Washington before returning to London, where he underwent training and was sent on active operations.
The exact nature of his work remains a closely guarded secret, but sources claim he dealt with equipment that tracked the flow of cash from Russia to Europe.
The technology enabled MI6 to follow money trails from bank accounts in Russia to criminal European gangs. One theory is that Mr Williams had disrupted a Mafia ring closely linked to the Russian state.
Cars registered to the Russian Embassy were spotted near his Pimlico flat just days before his body was discovered on August 23, 2010.
Mr Williams was last seen alive on August 15 – a Kremlin car was seen near his property that day.
Other lines of inquiry, also dismissed by the Met at the time, were that he was killed by MI6 or American agents after stumbling on sensitive data, or because he threatened to make secret intelligence public.
There were also claims Mr Williams may have been killed by a lover during a bizarre sex game.
Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox, who heard the 2012 inquest into his death, criticised MI6 for failing to report that the spy had been missing for a week, saying this caused extra suffering for his family and led to the loss of forensic evidence. The delay, for which MI6 apologised, also meant a Home Office pathologist was unable to find a cause of death.
Dr Wilcox concluded that Mr Williams’s death was ‘unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated’. She said she was satisfied ‘on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully’, as it was likely someone else had put his body in the bag and locked it.
But a year later, Scotland Yard ended a review of the investigation, saying it was more likely Williams had locked himself in the bag and that no one else was involved.
However, the latest line of inquiry supports the family’s belief that the flat was ‘steam-cleaned’ by secret agents – which may be why no DNA evidence was found. Their lawyer, Anthony O’Toole, told a pre-inquest hearing they believed a third party was present at the time of death or later destroyed evidence.
Mr O’Toole told Westminster Coroner’s Court: ‘The impression of the family is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services, or evidence has been removed post-mortem.’
It now appears the coroner was not told about the tampering with the footplates, or the belief by detectives that someone had broken into the building.
An intelligence source said: ‘The forensics officer was adamant that nobody was allowed in or out of the crime scene, so when he turned up the following day to find the footplates had been moved an investigation was launched. The only way anybody could have got into that building was to have scaled the walls and got in through the skylight.
‘This was never revealed as it was pretty embarrassing for the Met. Somebody appears to have broken in, perhaps cleaned up and got out again while officers were guarding the entrance to the flat.’
Gareth Williams' body was found in his London flat in August 2010
But Mail on Sunday can now reveal unknown agent may be behind death
Special footplates were moved after the first day of the investigation
Led Scotland Yard to believe someone had broken into the crime scene
By Robert Verkaik for The Mail on Sunday | published: August 15, 2015 | updated: August 16, 2015
Detectives who investigated the mysterious death of a British spy found padlocked in a bag in his flat believe he was murdered and that his killers then broke back in through a skylight to cover their tracks.
Gareth Williams, 31, was discovered in a holdall in the bath at his London home five years ago this month. Now a source at the heart of the investigation has told The Mail on Sunday that Scotland Yard detectives believe an agent from an unknown secret service broke into the victim’s flat to destroy or remove evidence.
The new claim centres on the revelation that part of the forensic equipment placed in the flat after the body was found was moved – despite the fact the building was under armed police guard.
Special footplates, which allow officers to walk across a crime scene without contaminating it, were moved after the first day of the investigation. This led Scotland Yard to conclude that someone must have scaled the building’s walls and broken in through the skylight to cover their tracks. This so far unknown line of inquiry raises questions about how Mr Williams, a maths genius and expert cryptographer, really met his end. It also supports his family’s suspicions he was murdered by ‘agents specialising in the dark arts of the secret services’.
Mr Williams had been working with the American National Security Agency in Washington before returning to London, where he underwent training and was sent on active operations.
The exact nature of his work remains a closely guarded secret, but sources claim he dealt with equipment that tracked the flow of cash from Russia to Europe.
The technology enabled MI6 to follow money trails from bank accounts in Russia to criminal European gangs. One theory is that Mr Williams had disrupted a Mafia ring closely linked to the Russian state.
Cars registered to the Russian Embassy were spotted near his Pimlico flat just days before his body was discovered on August 23, 2010.
Mr Williams was last seen alive on August 15 – a Kremlin car was seen near his property that day.
Other lines of inquiry, also dismissed by the Met at the time, were that he was killed by MI6 or American agents after stumbling on sensitive data, or because he threatened to make secret intelligence public.
There were also claims Mr Williams may have been killed by a lover during a bizarre sex game.
Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox, who heard the 2012 inquest into his death, criticised MI6 for failing to report that the spy had been missing for a week, saying this caused extra suffering for his family and led to the loss of forensic evidence. The delay, for which MI6 apologised, also meant a Home Office pathologist was unable to find a cause of death.
Dr Wilcox concluded that Mr Williams’s death was ‘unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated’. She said she was satisfied ‘on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully’, as it was likely someone else had put his body in the bag and locked it.
But a year later, Scotland Yard ended a review of the investigation, saying it was more likely Williams had locked himself in the bag and that no one else was involved.
However, the latest line of inquiry supports the family’s belief that the flat was ‘steam-cleaned’ by secret agents – which may be why no DNA evidence was found. Their lawyer, Anthony O’Toole, told a pre-inquest hearing they believed a third party was present at the time of death or later destroyed evidence.
Mr O’Toole told Westminster Coroner’s Court: ‘The impression of the family is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services, or evidence has been removed post-mortem.’
It now appears the coroner was not told about the tampering with the footplates, or the belief by detectives that someone had broken into the building.
An intelligence source said: ‘The forensics officer was adamant that nobody was allowed in or out of the crime scene, so when he turned up the following day to find the footplates had been moved an investigation was launched. The only way anybody could have got into that building was to have scaled the walls and got in through the skylight.
‘This was never revealed as it was pretty embarrassing for the Met. Somebody appears to have broken in, perhaps cleaned up and got out again while officers were guarding the entrance to the flat.’
Filed under
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by Winter Patriot
on Saturday, August 15, 2015 |
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