Voice of Russia : Second Thoughts: British intelligence and damage containment

Second Thoughts: British intelligence and damage containment

The discovery of a British MI6 agent naked inside a padlocked bag in his bath; the death in London of a former Russian security services officer by polonium 210 poisoning; ex-CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden; and the death – apparently by suicide – of a UK-based Russian oligarch, have something in common, says VoR’s Jim Ensom.

November 18, 2013

The body in the bag

Gareth Williams was a bright, good-looking, fit and healthy code breaker working for the British surveillance centre GCHQ on secondment to the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.

Three years ago, he was found dead inside a padlocked holdall in his bath. At his inquest, the coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, delivered a narrative verdict saying: “The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated. I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities Gareth was killed unlawfully.”

She had heard from experts who had repeatedly failed to padlock themselves into bags identical to his holdall. One expert said escapologist Harry Houdini "would have struggled" to pull off the feat.

The coroner said that Williams’ iPhone had been mysteriously wiped of all data just hours before he died in August 2010.

She also said that the forgetfulness of some employees at MI6 “stretched probability”.

Police disagree with coroner

This week, however, the Metropolitan Police – having re-opened its own investigation – had concluded that Williams had died by accident by climbing naked into the holdall and padlocking it from the outside during some strange ritual.

"My personal view at the end of the investigation is that what happened was an accident," Martin Hewitt, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, told reporters.

"I am convinced that Gareth's death was in no way related to his work."

He admitted that several "odd" factors remained - notably the fact that no DNA was found on the padlock, and there were no handprints on the bathtub.

But Hewitt said police were satisfied that it was "theoretically possible" for a man to lock himself in the bag.

"The point is that we're satisfied that theoretically you could achieve that," he told reporters.

"Gareth's physical stature, Gareth's strength - my belief is that it would have been possible for him to do that."

"Most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered," he said.

"It is unlikely that his death will ever be satisfactorily explained."

MI6 “always has been, and always will be, very, very secretive” - Dorril

Dr Stephen Dorril is the author of MI6: 50 Years of Special Operations. He says: “Even if MI6 had no involvement in the mysterious death of Gareth Williams, it would still have an interest in covering up the circumstances”.

Writing in the Mirror this week, he said MI6 has always tried to keep its work away from public scrutiny.

“It has a history of not releasing documents, not co-operating with inquiries fully. So people are entitled to be suspicious of any information that does come out. And it doesn’t want people digging too deeply into the actual work Gareth Williams was engaged in.

“He operated in an area involving GCHQ and its liaison with MI6, and probing questions would lead on to the sensitive nature of these operations, particularly in the light of the Edward Snowden revelations”.

"We know from the former CIA man’s leaks how important GCHQ is to British intelligence gathering and that there is extensive monitoring of emails, phones and every kind of digital traffic".

Snowden, an employee of defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton at the National Security Agency (NSA), disclosed that the US National Security Agency was tapping internet data globally under a programme called PRISM and that the UK’s surveillance agency, GCHQ, had access to it under a programme called Project Tempora.

Litvinenko, British intelligence and his death

Alexander Litvinenko was an officer of the Russian FSB security service, who, in 1998 accused the Russian authorities of conspiring to assassinate the tycoon Boris Berezovsky. Litvinenko was arrested on charges of exceeding his authority and acquitted in 1999. He was re-arrested in 2000, but again the charges were dropped. He was dismissed from the FSB.

He left Russia and was granted asylum in the United Kingdom where he worked as a journalist and for the British intelligence services.

On November 1, 2006 at 3.30pm he met Mario Scaramella, a security consultant and academic nuclear expert, in the Itsu suchi bar in Piccadilly.

An hour later, he met two Russian men – Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoy, both ex-FSB officers – in the Millennium Hotel.

Litvinenko complained of illness that evening and was admitted to hospital. He suffered a slow and agonising death from radioactive polonium-210 poisoning.

He died in University College Hospital on November 23, 2006. Seven years on, his inquest proper has yet to begin.

No inquest, no public inquiy

Sir Robert Owen, Her Majesty’s Assistant Coroner for Inner North London, has said he is having some difficulty starting an inquest into Litvinenko’s death because the Foreign Office is invoking every legal action it can to prevent MI5 and MI6 evidence being heard.

Sir Robert had previously told the inquest that his request for a public inquiry – which would have been able to hear some evidence in camera (closed court) – had been turned down.

The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, had invoked Public Interest Immunity to prevent the testament of the security services – MI5 and MI6 –being heard at the inquest. Under the rules, a coroner has no right to hear that evidence.

However, Sir Robert had appealed for the inquest to be turned into a public inquiry which would have been able to 'hear' the evidence, but not necessarily in public.

That was denied by the Lord Chancellor, Chris Grayling MP, a conservative politician who sits in David Cameron's cabinet alongside William Hague.

The Litvinenko family called for a judicial review of the refusal, saying it showed "utter contempt".

That judicial review request has yet to be heard.

Berezovsky’s death and the silence that followed

Boris Berezovsky, the self-made billionaire – said to be worth $3 billion – was a former academic who built his fortune with investments in oil, cars, aluminium, and the media.

He played an integral part in Vladimir Putin’s rise to power in 2000. However, he fell from favour following a crackdown on many oligarchs for tax evasion. Berezovsky fled to England in 2000, where he lived until his death.

He was found dead in his bathroom at his mansion in Mill Lane, Ascot, west of London on Saturday March 23, 2013.

Friends of Boris Berezovsky have claimed that the Russian oligarch was strangled to death despite a post-mortem examination which showed no sign of a struggle and that he died with a ligature around his neck, consistent with hanging.

The inquest was opened and adjourned on March 28, after a brief police statement in which a spokesman confirmed: “The results of the post-mortem examination, carried out by a Home Office pathologist, have found the cause of death is consistent with hanging. The pathologist has found nothing to indicate a violent struggle”.

The inquest proper into Berezovsky’s death has – like Litvinenko’s – yet to get underway.

Officially, the police are still awaiting the results of toxicology tests.

Police sources have told me that the length of time between his death and the start of his inquest – supposedly in the new year – is unusual and cannot be put down to toxicology results, which would normally be available within 48 hours, or in the case of very specialised testing, four to six weeks.

What a state of affairs

We will probably never know how MI6 operative Gareth Williams died, naked in the padlocked bag.

Nor who killed Alexander Litvinenko, as the British government is doing the best it can to stymie the coroner’s inquest and made a political decision to turn down a public inquiry.

The death of Boris Berezovsky remains a mystery, especially as the police seem to think it was a straightforward suicide by hanging. Still no inquest.

But this is Britain for you. If you can keep a secret, you keep it in the bag.

(Voice of Russia)

Mirror : Spy-in-the-bag mystery: Why I think MI6 WERE involved in Gareth Williams cover-up

Spy-in-the-bag mystery: Why I think MI6 WERE involved in Gareth Williams cover-up

Dr Stephen Dorril, an espionage expert who wrote the history of MI6, says we should be 'very sceptical about the official version of events'

Dr Stephen Dorril | opinion | November 16, 2013

Even if MI6 had no involvement in the mysterious death of Gareth Williams, it would still have an interest in covering up the circumstances.

The organisation always has been, and always will be, very, very secretive.

A coroner last year ruled that the 31-year-old codebreaker was “probably unlawfully killed” after his body was found padlocked into a holdall in a bathtub.

The inquest was told that police in the case could not speak to his MI6 colleagues directly and the coroner said that though there was no evidence that the intelligence agency was involved in his death “it is still a legitimate line of inquiry”.

MI6 has always tried to keep its work away from public scrutiny. It has a history of not releasing documents, not co-operating with inquiries fully. So people are entitled to be suspicious of any information that does come out.

It would argue there are areas of its work it doesn’t want to reveal. And it doesn’t want people digging too deeply into the actual work Gareth Williams was engaged in.

He operated in an area involving GCHQ and its liaison with MI6, and probing questions would lead on to the sensitive nature of these operations, particularly in the light of the Edward Snowden revelations.

We know from the former CIA man’s leaks how important GCHQ is to British intelligence gathering and that there is extensive monitoring of emails, phones and every kind of digital traffic.

But we still have no clear picture as to what Gareth was working on.

There are a three theories as to how this extremely intelligent man’s body ended up in the locked bag at an MI6 safe house. One is that he himself set this up. He was a loner with a hidden sexual history and the type of work he was doing with GCHQ and MI6 indicates he was one of their brightest stars.

Working in crypto-analysis, he was interested in solving highly complex, deep puzzles of encryption. It is possible that he set this up as an unsolvable problem, a puzzle that would be there for all time.

How could he get into a bag and close it from the inside. Did he have a trick to achieve it without anyone finding out? It is possible.

The second theory is that this was an error, an accident. The third is that he was murdered.

For it to be an accident the investigation has to show that it is possible to get into the bag and close it from the inside. The police now say this is the case.

But for that theory to hold water, they really need to demonstrate that it is physically possible and the inquest heard that two yoga experts tried 400 times to do it without success.

So the theory that it was murder remains strong.

Was the crime scene cleaned up? Police say there is no evidence of a “deep clean”. But forensic scientists found no fingerprints around the rim of the bath, not even Gareth’s own, which suggests someone cleaned up after his death.

And that means someone else was involved.

The coroner said it was likely that the mystery would never be solved, and for that some blame must attach to the reticence of MI6.

Even questions about why Gareth was staying in this flat in Pimlico, South West London – used by both MI6 and GCHQ and only a mile from MI6 HQ – brings with it awkward queries about other safe houses and the agents who uses them.

MI6 also has a long history of covering up its mistakes. It has been less than candid about its intelligence gathering and reliability in the run-up to the war with Iraq. There are the “rendition” scandals of people packed off to the USA and, for some, their subsequent torture.

What little we know had to be dragged out of MI6 by various inquiries and ongoing court cases, and it’s clear that there is still a good deal that remains hidden.

But the service does make sure it gets out its own version of events. It co-operates with certain news­papers, journalists and MPs to get its message across.

MI6 controls what it reveals – it doesn’t want people digging around too much and it certainly doesn’t want full-scale inquiries into what they do.

And in this case a lot of stories about Gareth came from security and defence correspondents with MI6 contacts rather than crime correspondents covering the case.

If something like this had happened in the United States we would know far more about it.

The powers of US Senate committees on intelligence are stronger and they are willing to look at things in far greater depth. It isn’t a perfect system but it is far better than ours.

We do know a lot more about MI6 than we did 20 years ago but, still, no official documents are ever released.

The service is open in saying it doesn’t reveal information because secrecy is its trade and unless it remains super-secret it will lose credibility in the world and agents will not be able to trust it.

But that also means that with the Gareth Williams case we have to be very sceptical about the official version of events.

Dr Stephen Dorril is the author of MI6: 50 Years of Special Operations. Additional reporting: Alun Palmer