Daily Mail : The secret double identity of murdered spy: Friend insists Gareth Williams was not gay - and was being trained by MI6 for undercover role

The secret double identity of murdered spy: Friend insists Gareth Williams was not gay - and was being trained by MI6 for undercover role

The spy found dead in a sports bag had been given a new identity by his MI6 bosses in the months leading up to his mysterious death.

By Daniel Boffey | December 25, 2010

Gareth Williams, a GCHQ codebreaker on secondment to MI6, had two passports and told his best friend that he was preparing for an undercover operation.

Details of the 31-year-old’s role within the secret services are disclosed today in an interview with his confidante and childhood sweetheart, Sian Lloyd-Jones.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, she said: ‘I find it difficult to see anything in his personal life which could lie behind this.’

She reveals:

* He was training to take on a new identity eight months before he was found dead.
* He often purchased designer women’s clothes, but she insists they were gifts for her and his sister.
* The maths genius was found dead two days before he was due to visit Paris with his sister.

The revelations shed new light on Mr Williams’s work which, until now, had been regarded as highly technical and carrying little risk.

His body was found inside a zipped and padlocked North Face holdall in the bathroom of his MI6 flat on August 23. A post-mortem was inconclusive.

Last week police released e-fits of a couple they wish to question and provided intimate details about Mr Williams’s life, including his interest in bondage websites and his extraordinary collection of women’s designer clothes and shoes, worth about £15,000.

But Ms Lloyd-Jones, 33, claims Mr Williams would have confided in her and his sister, Ceri, if he had any homosexual urges. Ms Lloyd-Jones, a fashion stylist, said: ‘I’m not in denial and nor is his mum, dad or sister. It would have been fine if he was [gay].

‘I have seen every item of clothing that was there. I truly believe that Ceri and I were going to receive the clothing. He was so generous you wouldn’t believe.’

She finds it difficult to see anything in his private life which could have led to his killing.

But she reveals his work was more complex than previously believed.

‘He said he was learning his new identity,’ she said. ‘In February he said he’d be unavailable for nine days because he was on a training exercise. He’d often go away, so I didn’t think any more about it.’

Ms Lloyd-Jones added that she last heard from Mr Williams on the day he was last seen alive when he was ‘happy and warm and the same as he always was’.

But it was Mr Williams’s sister – who was due to accompany him on a trip to Paris later that week – who alerted her that something may be wrong when she couldn’t get hold of him on the phone. She said that was when she became worried ‘because he’s like clockwork, he’s so predictable’.

There's no mystery about those women's clothes. He bought them for me and his sister

To Sian Lloyd-Jones, it was just another ordinary evening. A fashion stylist, she was pottering around the sitting room of her Knightsbridge flat organising outfits for the following day’s photoshoot.

Meanwhile her friend, Gareth Williams, was sitting on the sofa leafing through the contents of a black box file. Inside there were documents and notes and two passports.

‘He said he was learning his new identity,’ says Sian now. ‘It was all so relaxed. I was taping up shoes and co-ordinating outfits and he was going through his papers.

‘He often came round with his work. That night he came over with his box file and started going through it. He had two passports. He probably fell asleep on the sofa that night and stayed overnight with all the documents.’

At the time, Sian thought nothing of it. Nor did she think it significant when Gareth said he’d be ‘unavailable’ for nine days the following month as he would be away on a training exercise.

Sian knew her friend was a spy and that his job would often take him away for weeks at a time. She also knew there was a necessary element of secrecy to his life. What she couldn’t know was that eight months later, Gareth would be found dead, and in the most horrific circumstances.

It was on August 23 that police were called to Gareth’s flat in Pimlico, Central London, an MI6-owned safe house. He had been missing for more than a week. They found his decomposed body locked in a large red North Face sports bag.

In the months since, his friends and family have not only had to try to come to terms with their loss, they have had to endure a stream of unsavoury leaks from mysterious sources.

It was rumoured that Gareth, 31, was gay after bondage equipment was allegedly found in his apartment along with phone numbers for gay escorts. This was denied by the police, but by then the damage had already been done. Then there were reported irregularities in his finances, also denied.

And last week there were further lurid allegations after police said they wanted to question a Mediterranean couple who were seen calling at Gareth’s flat before he died. But as well as releasing e-fits of the unknown man and woman, they revealed that Gareth had bought £15,000 of designer clothes and shoes, including labels such as Stella McCartney and Christian Louboutin. They were all stored unopened in their bags and boxes alongside a number of women’s wigs.

Police disclosed that Gareth had visited five bondage websites, which were not pornographic but would give readers advice on how to get in and out of confined spaces. They also said they had found tickets for a number of drag shows.

Gareth devoted his life to serving his country. He was already acknowledged as a talented codebreaker and had worked for the Government listening post GCHQ for ten years before being seconded for a year to MI6. Now, it appears he was rather more than that and was involved in the type of tradecraft more commonly found in a John le Carre novel. There is even a plaque to him at GCHQ in Cheltenham in honour of his work.

'The person everyone talks about .  .  . I don’t recognise him at all. He was the complete opposite of everything that has been said about him.'

Yet the constant drip-feed of sordid allegations has not only destroyed his reputation, it suggests that he is somehow to blame for his own demise. For Sian, and for Gareth’s parents, Ian and Ellen, and sister Ceri, this has caused untold pain at an already heart-wrenching time.

Until now, those close to Gareth have kept their counsel. Yet now Sian, 33, has agreed to speak about the man she has known since she was eight; a man who is very different from the one she keeps hearing about in the media.

A bubbly, garrulous young woman, who also comes from Gareth’s home town of Holyhead, she’s not the sort of girl who would be friends with a ‘strange loner’, as Gareth has so often been painted.

She says: ‘The person everyone talks about .  .  . I don’t recognise him at all. 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. They’re not celebrating Christmas. They weren’t going to anyway but the latest revelations have just made it even worse for them.

‘They’re completely broken by this because it’s not the true Gareth at all. He 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.

‘He was very effortless as a person. Nothing was a bother to him; whether you asked him to call you a cab or do a big deed, he was always the same. He wasn’t a loner and he wasn’t lonely. He had close chums in Cheltenham whom he was very friendly with and whom he spoke highly of, but because of the line of work they do they naturally keep in the background. He loved what he did and he thrived on it. He was a workaholic. That kept him very happy and content.

‘When Gareth was not at work, I was the person he spent more time with than anyone else. I have thought about this every day since he died. I find it difficult to see anything in his personal life which could lie behind this. But I know this is a murder investigation so we must remain open to every possibility.

‘His family respect, 100 per cent, that he worked for MI6. I and the family respect the role he was
in. But personally, I don’t think we’ll ever get an answer as to what happened.’

As for the latest allegations, Sian rejects them absolutely. While most men might not keep thousands of pounds of designer clothes, she says it was merely a sign of his generosity. She told police in the summer that Gareth would often buy her and his sister, Ceri, expensive gifts and she believes the clothes were meant for them.

As if to prove it, she points to her £760 Stella McCartney PVC trousers which were a present from Gareth.

She says: ‘I’ve seen every item of clothing that was there in the flat. There was Diana von Furstenberg, Stella McCartney, all in a size 6 or 8 which he wouldn’t even fit an arm or a leg into. He was small but not that small. And the shoes they found in his apartment were not in his size, but his sister’s. He was so generous you wouldn’t believe.

'I truly believe if he had any interest in homosexuality, he would have spoken to his sister and to me as well.'

‘The list is endless. He bought me a high-end Balenciaga top, a Gucci bag, a Mulberry bag, an Armani fur. He did the same for his sister. I truly believe that Ceri and I were going to receive the clothing. We received so many things from him, that wouldn’t have been strange.’

As for the women’s wigs, Sian says there is an entirely innocent explanation. ‘He and an American friend were going to a fancy-dress party in October,’ she says. One of his hobbies was Japanese superhero cartoons and they were going to go as two of the characters. They were pink and yellow and those are the only wigs that were found.

‘I didn’t know he went to the drag clubs but I think that was quite a new thing. He spoke in depth to his sister about everything. He mentioned he’d been to the transvestite comedy club so it’s not something he was trying to hide.’

The constant implication throughout all the rumour and counter-rumour is that Gareth was gay. This is something Sian also denies. She says: ‘They said last week that he had been training in fashion, doing night school at Central St Martin’s. I didn’t know about that but I knew he liked fashion. He saw it as art.

‘He had lots of magazines at his flat, Italian Vogue and all sorts, but he was open with his family, and if he was gay and had any temptations he would have spoken about them, especially to his sister. Hand on heart, there were no “innuendoes” about him.

‘His father was his best friend and he adored his mother and his sister. He was really open with his friends and family about his personal life and I truly believe if he had any interest in homosexuality, he would have spoken to his sister and to me as well.

‘I’m not in denial and nor are Gareth’s mum, dad or sister. It would have been fine if he was but he had too much interest in women. He wanted a girlfriend and he wanted a wife and family. The truth is he wished he was better with women. He had a mild stutter, which was a big barrier as it would get worse when he was nervous.

I don’t know if he ever had a girlfriend. There weren’t any I was aware of but to be honest, we never mentioned it. I know it was my next big project to get him a girlfriend. He felt he lacked confidence with women. He cherished the time he had with his sister and with me and he wanted that with other girls. I know because Gareth had a bit of a soft spot for me.’

Sian and Gareth first met at Ysgol Gynradd Morswyn primary school where her mother, Eleri, was a dinner lady. Her father Alwyn was a BT engineer.

Gareth was two years younger than her, the brilliant child prodigy of Ian, an engineer at Wylfa power station, and Ellen, who worked in education. Sian says: ‘He was moved up two years because he was so clever. He used to read encyclo-pedias at six. Even in primary school, he was doing his GCSEs during lunchtime.

'I was quite naughty at school. I used to sell his homework. He used to have a big list. People used to come, all those who couldn’t do their maths, and he would do it for them.'

‘We were childhood sweethearts at school. Then when we went to Bodedern, our secondary school, he moved on leaps and bounds with his intellect. He really was a genius. I would say a date, say May 15, 1974, and he would count back and then say, yes it was a Wednesday. He could work it out. But if he was here today, he’d hang out and enjoy a chat and a catch up. He was so approachable.

‘I was quite naughty at school. I used to sell his homework. He used to have a big list. People used to come, all those who couldn’t do their maths, and he would do it for them. We only sold it for school dinner money, 70p a time or something like that, and I used to buy magazines. He got nothing, to be honest. He didn’t want anything. That’s how he was, how we were as friends.’

After school the two friends went their separate ways.

Mr Williams gained special permission to leave school for Bangor University aged just 15, and at 18 he left home to study for a PhD at Manchester University. Three years later, he was approached by the British security services, who apparently spotted his precocious online gaming abilities.

Sian left school at 16 to become a window-dresser for Next in Bangor before going on to become a celebrity fashion stylist. She moved to Manchester and worked on Hollyoaks and Coronation Street.

It was in Manchester, four years ago, that she bumped into Gareth again. She says: ‘It was surreal at first. I was coming down the escalators at Selfridges and I spotted him coming up. We took off again. We went out for a drink and chatted. To be honest with you, I think we were both slightly in awe of each other. We were both excited by what the other was doing and amused too. He told me he was working for GCHQ.

‘We talked for a couple of hours and made a pact we would always stay in touch, and we did. We called each other every week from then on. And he would come up roughly once a month. He was hugely into music, from classical to rap. Music was his life. He’d always tie up his visits with a gig at the MEN Arena or the Apollo. I never went with him, I’d meet him afterwards or the next day. He’d often help me with the shopping for my shoots.’

Two years ago Sian moved to London, where she lives with her partner of three years Saul Herd, 37, who runs a corporate flooring company. Gareth also moved to the capital after he was seconded to MI6.

She says: ‘Our friendship deepened. We didn’t have many friends around us – he’d moved from Cheltenham, I’d moved from Manchester – and so we stuck closely together. We’d grown up together and enjoyed each other’s company.

‘We used to go to Nobu Berkeley Square in Mayfair. He always treated me. We just used to hang out.

‘Sometimes we’d go to the Fifth Floor bar at Harvey Nichols and drink cocktails. It would be apple sours for me. He would have a non-alcoholic cocktail. He used to join in with whatever was there, white wine or champagne if there was a group, but he wasn’t a drinker. If it was just me and him he wouldn’t have anything at all.

‘He used to just turn up at any time. He was always welcome. I might have spoken to him and told him I was finishing late and he would pop round. Sometimes he would stay over on the sofa. He would always bring me a bottle of rosé and often some cigarettes. He was a true old-school gentleman.

‘He loved candles. He used to love burning my expensive candles and then we’d have a catch-up and a gossip. There was no one like him, I had such an in-depth relationship with him. He was so knowledgeable about everything from restaurants to cars to maths to politics.’

Sian last saw Gareth in April. She had moved back to Wales for a while to take a break from the pressures of London life, while he was preparing to go on a driving holiday to the West Coast of America during July and August.

She says: ‘Before he went to America, we went down to Trearddur Bay and watched the sunset. We’d spent the whole afternoon together. I was at home with my parents and he stopped by. He was excited about his trip. He seemed very together. There was nothing troubling him. It was just a lovely, completely normal afternoon.’

She had no way of knowing she would never see Gareth again. The couple stayed in touch, as ever, on the phone and he called her on August 14, the day of the last known sighting of him at Holland Park Tube station. She says: ‘He just said, “Hi darling, how’s it hanging?”

‘He said he was leaving London and moving back to Cheltenham, and wondering when we would meet up next. He was happy and warm and the same as he always was. He left the message on the Saturday but I didn’t get it until the Wednesday as I was in Spain for work and couldn’t pick up messages abroad.

‘He was fine, which is why I’m sure he didn’t try to take his own life. And anyway, he’d never do that. He loved his family too much to commit suicide. Then on August 23, the day he was found, Ceri called me at 11am and asked if I’d heard from him. I said, “Yes, a week ago.” He and Ceri were due to go to Paris on the Wednesday of that week. She’d tried to get in touch over the weekend and there was no answer on the home phone or the mobile.

‘It was odd she hadn’t heard from him, particularly as they were going away. She said, “What do you think?” I told her I was sure it was nothing to worry about. But the minute I put the phone down, I knew something was wrong. He was like clockwork, so predictable. It was completely out of character for him.

‘I spoke to Ceri again later and we both admitted we were worried. We thought he must have had an accident or something. She called his work and they said he hadn’t shown up for a meeting on Wednesday.’

That day all their lives changed when Gareth was found dead. A month later, on September 24, they buried Gareth at Bethel Methodist Chapel in Anglesey. The head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, attended.

Sian says: ‘The family were really happy he came. There were around 20 people from his work there. They came in through the back door of the chapel and had a separate area they were guided into. To be honest, I don’t think anyone really noticed as there were so many people there.’

But they can never fully lay Gareth to rest until they have some idea as to how, and why, he died. Sian says: ‘I’m not sure we ever will know but the family need some answers. If anyone has any information about what happened to Gareth, I hope they will come forward. It’s not fair for his family to suffer like this.

Montreal Gazette : Dead male, British spy owned wardrobe of women's clothes

Dead male, British spy owned wardrobe of women's clothes

By Duncan Gardham, Daily Telegraph | December 23, 2010

A British spy whose naked body was found padlocked in a sports bag had been visiting bondage websites and drag clubs and had $25,000 collection of women's clothing, police have disclosed.

Officers investigating the death of Gareth Williams, a code-breaker who was on secondment to MI6, have released details of his unusual private life and explained the extraordinary riddle that surrounds his death.

While the death is officially described as "suspicious" rather than murder, officers also released photos of a Mediterranean couple who visited the apartment a few weeks later and let themselves in with a key.

Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell, the head of Scotland Yard's murder squad, said he was aware that the details would be "embarrassing, hurtful and distressing" for Williams's family but said they supported the appeal for anyone who had encountered him in the nightclubs, online or at women's clothing shops to come forward.

"We are very sure that someone else was in that flat.

"We want to know the circumstances when you would leave somebody in that position, by accident or design," he said.

Detective Chief Inspector Jacqueline Sebire, who is leading the inquiry, described Williams, 31, from Anglesey in Wales, as an "intensely private person" who kept his way of life hidden from friends and family.

His body was found in a red North Face bag on Aug. 23 after he failed to turn up to work at MI6's headquarters in London.

Inside his flat in central London, police found half a dozen boxes with neatly folded, apparently unused women's designer clothing and shoes, along with a number of wigs.

The clothing had been bought online and in London's West End, starting in 2008 and up until a few weeks before Williams died.

They were in small sizes that would have fit Williams, who was five-foot-eight and weighed around 126 pounds.

The labels included Stella McCartney, Christopher Kane and Christian Louboutin shoes, and the collection came to around $25,000.

Williams was not in debt, police said, and there were no signs that unaccounted for sums of money had been paid in to or left his bank account.

Unknown to his family and colleagues, Williams had attended two short courses in fashion design, one in 2010 and one in 2009.

Examination of his personal laptop and personal mobile phone showed that he had visited five separate bondage websites, beginning with a search on the online encyclopedia site Wikipedia and followed up with specialist bondage websites.

Keys to the padlock on the sports bag in which Williams was discovered were lying underneath the spy's naked body, police say.

An expert on rescuing people from confined spaces told investigators it would be impossible to lock the North Face bag from the inside.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Edmonton Journal : Dead male, British spy owned wardrobe of women's clothes

Dead male, British spy owned wardrobe of women's clothes

By Duncan Gardham, Daily Telegraph | December 23, 2010

A British spy whose naked body was found padlocked in a sports bag had been visiting bondage websites and drag clubs and had $25,000 collection of women's clothing, police have disclosed.

Officers investigating the death of Gareth Williams, a code-breaker who was on secondment to MI6, have released details of his unusual private life and explained the extraordinary riddle that surrounds his death.

While the death is officially described as "suspicious" rather than murder, officers also released photos of a Mediterranean couple who visited the apartment a few weeks later and let themselves in with a key.

Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell, the head of Scotland Yard's murder squad, said he was aware that the details would be "embarrassing, hurtful and distressing" for Williams's family but said they supported the appeal for anyone who had encountered him in the nightclubs, online or at women's clothing shops to come forward.

"We are very sure that someone else was in that flat.

"We want to know the circumstances when you would leave somebody in that position, by accident or design," he said.

Detective Chief Inspector Jacqueline Sebire, who is leading the inquiry, described Williams, 31, from Anglesey in Wales, as an "intensely private person" who kept his way of life hidden from friends and family.

His body was found in a red North Face bag on Aug. 23 after he failed to turn up to work at MI6's headquarters in London.

Inside his flat in central London, police found half a dozen boxes with neatly folded, apparently unused women's designer clothing and shoes, along with a number of wigs.

The clothing had been bought online and in London's West End, starting in 2008 and up until a few weeks before Williams died.

They were in small sizes that would have fit Williams, who was five-foot-eight and weighed around 126 pounds.

The labels included Stella McCartney, Christopher Kane and Christian Louboutin shoes, and the collection came to around $25,000.

Williams was not in debt, police said, and there were no signs that unaccounted for sums of money had been paid in to or left his bank account.

Unknown to his family and colleagues, Williams had attended two short courses in fashion design, one in 2010 and one in 2009.

Examination of his personal laptop and personal mobile phone showed that he had visited five separate bondage websites, beginning with a search on the online encyclopedia site Wikipedia and followed up with specialist bondage websites.

Keys to the padlock on the sports bag in which Williams was discovered were lying underneath the spy's naked body, police say.

An expert on rescuing people from confined spaces told investigators it would be impossible to lock the North Face bag from the inside.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Telegraph : MI6 spy found dead in bag: Gareth Williams visited bondage websites, drag cabaret and gay bars

MI6 spy found dead in bag: Gareth Williams visited bondage websites, drag cabaret and gay bars

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent | December 22, 2010

A British spy whose naked body was found padlocked into a sports bag in the bath of his flat in central London had been visiting bondage websites and drag clubs and had a £15,000 collection of women’s designer clothing, police have disclosed.

Officers investigating the death of Gareth Williams, a GCHQ code breaker who was on secondment to MI6, have released details of his unusual private life and explained the extraordinary riddle that surrounds his death.

While the death is officially described as “suspicious” rather than murder, officers also released e-fits of a Mediterranean couple that visited the flat a few weeks later and let themselves in with a key.

Det Chief Supt Hamish Campbell, the head of Scotland Yard’s murder squad, said he was aware that the details would be “embarrassing, hurtful and distressing” for Mr Williams’s family but said they supported the appeal for anyone that had encountered him in the nightclubs, online or at women’s clothing shops to come forward.

“We are very sure that someone else was in that flat. We want to know the circumstances when you would leave somebody in that position, by accident or design,” he added.

Det Chief Insp Jacqueline Sebire, who is leading the inquiry, described Mr Williams, 31, from Anglesey in North Wales, as an “intensely private person” who had kept his lifestyle hidden from friends and family.

His body was found in a red North Face holdall on August 23 after he failed to turn up to work at MI6’s headquarters at Vauxhall Cross in London.

Inside the flat, police found half a dozen boxes with neatly folded, apparently unused women’s designer clothing and shoes, along with a number of wigs.

The clothing had been bought online and in smart shops in London’s West End, starting in 2008 and going up until a few weeks before Mr Williams died.

They were all in small sizes that would have fitted Mr Williams, who was 5ft 8ins tall and weighed around 9st.

The labels included Stella McCartney, Christopher Kane and Christian Louboutin shoes, and the collection came to around £15,000.

Mr Williams was not in debt, police said, and there were no signs that unaccounted sums of money had been paid in or left his bank account.

Unknown to his family and colleagues, Mr Williams had also attended two, six to eight week courses in fashion design for beginners at the prestigious Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design in London during evenings and weekends, one in 2010 and one in 2009, passing both courses.

Mr Williams had recently visited the West Coast of the US for his work which involved working on computers and intercept techniques, and had combined the trip with a fly-drive holiday.

He arrived back in Britain on Wednesday August 11 and two days later he went to the Bistrotheque restaurant and bar in Bethnal Green, East London to watch Jimmy Woo, a drag artist.

CCTV recovered later showed him wearing cream trousers and a blue t-shirt.

“He went alone and left alone,” DCI Sebire said. “He chatted to people at the event but it was nothing other than small talk.”

The spy also had two single tickets for two other drag acts at the Vauxhall Tavern in South London, not far from MI6 headquarters, for each of the following weekends.

A single witness has also said they chatted to him at a gay bar called Barcode in Vauxhall in May, although police have been unable to trace any sexual partners, either heterosexual or homosexual.

However examination of his personal laptop and personal mobile phone showed that he had visited five separate bondage websites, beginning with a search on the encyclopedia site Wikipedia and followed up with the sites hogtie.com, boundanna.com, artofconstriction.com and likera.com.

The evidence recovered from the computer and phone does not show whether he chatted to anyone online, but some of the sites had chat forums, police said.

The sites were said to be primarily pictures of women and “how to guides” and Mr Williams visited them on only four occasions between the end of 2009 and a few weeks before he died. There was no sign that he had visited any pornographic websites.

Telegraph : Concern grows over foreign involvement in spy's death

Concern grows over foreign involvement in spy's death

Concern is growing within the intelligence community that the MI6 spy found dead in his London flat may have been the victim of a professional hit by a foreign power.

By Patrick Sawer and Gordon Thomas | September 11, 2010

Sources have told this newspaper that Britain's intelligence services – MI6, MI5 and GCHQ – are liaising closely to establish whether Gareth Williams was targeted by a foreign power.

The 31-year-old was seconded from GCHQ to work on top-secret systems to defend British banks and transport infrastructure from cyber attack and to eavesdrop on terrorist communications.

As a result he may have come to the attention of foreign intelligence agencies.

Security service sources suggest that the most likely explanation for Mr Williams's death is still to be found in his private life, but they admit they are not yet certain and are considering a range of explanations.

Some officials are starting to believe the way the killing was carried out – leaving few, if any, immediate clues as to the cause of death – could point to a professionally-carried-out assassination.

Scotland Yard, which is leading the investigation into his death, said: "We're not at the stage where we can pinpoint how Mr Williams died and all avenues in this investigation remain open. We are keeping an open mind."

It is feared that by the time of his death last month Mr Williams's presence in London had become known to foreign spies, despite the fact he was living in a MI6 safe house with an alarm system linking him to nearby MI6 headquarters.

"It would have been part of their brief", said a British intelligence officer.

The 31-year-old maths and computer expert would have been regarded as a valuable asset for his knowledge of the inner-workings of GCHQ, the government's listening post in Cheltenham, and for his work on preventing cyber attacks on the banking and transport infrastructure.

It is understood Mr Williams's job at the time of his death was creating computer defences in the City of London. Williams would have had access to information which other countries would want to obtain.

The intelligence source said: "His job was to defend the banking system on which Britain's banking, commerce and all our public services depend. It was the kind of work that would have made him prime target for recruitment.

"He was also in a position to know about huge money transfers out of the Middle East which were linked to terror groups. It would be priceless data."

One theory being examined is that Mr Williams may have had an approach from a rival agency, and either rebuffed it without informing his superiors or initially agreed to co-operate then got cold feet.

If such an approach had been exposed there would have been severe political and diplomatic repercussions, making it expedient for Mr Williams to be killed.

It can be revealed that Williams had also played an important role in creating signal intelligence equipment, known as sigint, to listen to Taliban communications in Afghanistan.

He had helped in fitting out three Brittan-Norman Islander aircraft with this equipment to be used as airborne-listening stations.

Based at RAF Northolt in West London since 2007 they have flown over selected British cities searching for communications between suspected terrorists.

A key part of the equipment is the wide-band recorders that Mr Williams helped to develop. Each has the capacity to vacuum up continuous mobile phone traffic in a city the size of Bradford.

The "product" is then downloaded to GCHQ where state-of-the-art computers analyse the voices using voice-recognition software.

Mr Williams's knowledge of US intelligence agencies would have also been valuable. He spent several months at Menwith Hill, the secret listening station in Yorkshire used by the United States to intercept coded messages, and Fort Meade in Maryland, the home of the US's National Security Agency.

The death of Mr Williams has puzzled detectives since August 23, when his body was found inside a sports holdall, padlocked from the outside and left in the bath of the safe house where he was staying while on secondment to the service from his employer GCHQ, the government listening post.

There was no evidence of a struggle or a break in at the Pimlico flat and nothing had been stolen.

Although nothing has been discounted the evidence gathered so far suggests it is increasingly unlikely that Mr Williams was the victim of a random attack or a sex game that went wrong.

Pathologists have carried out two post-mortems, but both failed to establish how Mr Williams died, though the examination was complicated by the fact that the body was said to be in an "advanced state of decay".

What is known, however, is that Williams, a cycling enthusiast, had not been shot or stabbed and did not appear to have been strangled.

Scotland Yard say detectives are now awaiting the result of toxicology tests.

These would establish whether Mr Williams was poisoned using a deadly toxin such as strychnine, cyanide or thallium, administered in such a way as to leave no mark visible to the naked eye.

Sources state that Home Office pathologists are also looking for evidence that Mr Williams was smothered to death, a method that can leave no trace and is extremely hard to detect.

Concern about the possible involvement of a foreign agency has increased further following a public appeal issued last week [Monday, September 7] by Scotland Yard detectives, who are taking the lead in the investigation.

Detectives said they were trying to trace a couple Mediterranean appearance, aged between 20 and 30, who visited the house in Pimlico late one night in the weeks before Mr Williams died.

The Yard revealed the couple were the only people who had been seen around the time of his death at the property in Alderney Street not to be accounted for.

Neighbours told police the pair were let in through the communal front door late one evening, in either June or July. It is believed they were visiting Mr Williams and detectives want them to come forward so they can be eliminated from their inquiries.

Police have visited Mr Williams's landlady in Cheltenham, where he lived for 10 years before being seconded to MI6. They asked Jennifer Elliot about his working hours and lifestyle and about any friends or acquaintances who may have visited his lodgings.

Scotland Yard repeated its appeal for the 'Mediterranean couple' on Friday. A spokesman said: "We are still very keen to speak to the pair. They may have useful information."

Mr Williams's family are reportedly unhappy at the lack of progress in the investigation and are said to have demanded the return of his body. Reports say they would like to commission an independent own post-mortem examination into his death.

A source close to the family was reported as saying: "It is becoming very frustrating to get to the bottom of whatever has happened.

"There are just so many things we still don't know. We have made it clear to the police that we want the body back as soon as possible."

However, Dr Paul Knapman, the coroner in charge of the inquest, is reluctant to release the body until pathologists have completed their tests and established the cause of death.

Daily Star : MI6 MURDER: COPS HUNT 'MEDITERRANEAN COUPLE'

MI6 MURDER: COPS HUNT 'MEDITERRANEAN COUPLE'

By Gemma Wheatley | September 7, 2010

POLICE last night revealed they are looking for a “Mediterranean couple” over the death of MI6 spy Gareth Williams.

The news came as detectives released some of the last pictures of the murdered agent alive.

Gareth Williams' naked body was found padlocked inside a suitcase at his £400,000 flat in London’s Pimlico on August 23.

He was last seen shopping in Harrods eight days earlier, on Sunday August 15.

And police have released CCTV images of him entering Holland Park Underground station the day before.

The Met yesterday revealed it is trying to trace a man and woman who were spotted visiting Mr Williams’s flat late one evening a few weeks earlier.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard said: “Officers are appealing for information to identify a man and a woman, both of Mediterranean appearance, aged between 20 and 30 years old, who called at 36 Alderney Street in June or July, late one evening.

“They were let into the communal front door.”

There were no signs of disturbances in the flat or of a forced entry and nothing is believed to have been taken from inside.

The new clues came as it also emerged that his body had been found submerged in a mystery fluid, thought to have been used to speed up decay.

The fluid was not believed to be blood or water and could have been used to complicate toxicology results.

Mr Williams’s remains were found stuffed inside a North Face sports bag in his bath.

The 31-year-old cycling and fitness fanatic was a maths genius on secondment to MI6’s HQ on the bank of the Thames in London when he died.

His last movements are believed to have been on Sunday, August 15, when he was seen shopping in the capital’s Brompton Road.

Police said Mr Williams, who was 5ft 7in and of muscular build with short hair, was wearing a red T-shirt, beige trousers and white trainers.

He withdrew money from a cash machine and went into Harrods.

At around 2.30pm he was spotted heading from there towards Sloane Street.

Forensic tests at his flat are continuing, while results from the post-mortem examination revealed that there were no indications of drug use.

But so far police are no closer to finding out exactly how Mr Williams died.

Det Chief Insp Jacqueline Sebire, who is leading the investigation, said: “I would appeal to anyone who may have seen or had contact with Gareth in the period between 11 and 23 August to come forward and speak with us.

“This remains a complex unexplained death inquiry.”

Last night, University of Buckingham security expert Professor Anthony Glees said: “In my own opinion, a murder of this kind bears all the hallmarks of a professional killing and not a rage attack.

“It looks increasingly to me that a hostile intelligence service was responsible.

“To me this looks like a Russian job – they have killed in London before – but it could also be an Iranian one.”

Daily Mail : Was it poison? Two weeks after murdered spy was found in his bath, baffled police release CCTV of victim as they probe radiation theory

Was it poison? Two weeks after murdered spy was found in his bath, baffled police release CCTV of victim as they probe radiation theory

By Charlotte Gill | September 7, 2010

Tests to discover whether murdered MI6 spy Gareth Williams was poisoned are being carried out.

Yesterday, detectives revealed pictures of the last known moments of the 31-year-old codebreaking expert.

They also disclosed that his body was naked when found and initial toxicology tests show no traces of alcohol or recreational drugs in his system.

With no obvious cause of death, further tests are under way to determine whether a rare drug or poison can be found.

One possibility is that Mr Williams was killed by radiation poisoning, as happened when Polonium 210 was used to murder exiled Russian secret agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.

CCTV images show him walking through some of London’s most affluent areas eight days before his body was found padlocked in a sports bag in his bath.

Detectives also appealed for help in identifying a young man and woman who called at his flat late one night.

The pair, both of Mediterranean appearance and aged between 20 and 30, were let in through the communal door to the Victorian house conversion weeks before he died. It is not known whether they went to his flat or indeed saw the spy – deepening the mystery over his murder.

Two weeks after the spy’s body was found police are still unable to say how he died.

The CCTV footage shows him shopping alone at Harrods on Sunday August 15 at about 2.30pm. He is in a red T-shirt, beige trousers and white trainers and is carrying a white plastic bag.

A day earlier he was caught on CCTV entering Holland Park Tube station in West London at a similar time, again by himself, wearing the same clothes and carrying a white bag.

Scotland Yard said there was no sign of forced entry to Mr Williams’s flat, suggesting he might have known his killer and had let them in.

Detectives will not go into detail about who let the mystery couple in through the front door of the house in Pimlico, Central London, ‘late one evening’ in June or July or why they were there.

But the incident is seen as a potentially significant line of inquiry in the increasingly puzzling case, with pathologists yet to determine how the cipher and codes specialist died.

Although there are no outward signs that the cycling enthusiast met a violent death, officers have not yet ruled out asphyxiation.

The revelation that his body was naked will fuel speculation that he could have been involved in a sex game which went wrong.

Another theory for the absence of clothes is that his killer was forensically aware and wanted to destroy any potentially incriminating contact with Mr Williams.

Sources close to the inquiry have admitted they are ‘baffled’ about the case.

Claims that Mr Williams had previously complained of being followed and that a laptop computer is missing from his home have been rejected by police.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, who is leading the inquiry, said: ‘This remains a complex unexplained death inquiry.’

Investigators know that Mr Williams, who was a loner with few friends, returned from a ‘planned holiday’ in the U.S. on Wednesday August 11.

He was coming to the end of a year-long secondment at MI6, whose headquarters are half a mile from his flat, and was due to return to GCHQ, the Government’s listening post in Cheltenham.

Using his mobile phone to track his whereabouts, they have discovered by trawling through CCTV that he went shopping ‘on a number of occasions’ in the West End and Knightsbridge on August 14 and 15.

After visiting Harrods, he seen walking towards Sloane Street, near to the Dolce and Gabbana store, though he does not go in the shop. Police have refused to disclose what he was buying.

It is the last time he was seen and detectives are still desperate to find any further sightings.

Lurid speculation that Mr Williams was a gay transvestite and bondage gear was found in the flat has been dismissed as untrue by police.

A source close to the inquiry has also said there was ‘nothing out of place in his finances’ despite reports that unexplained money might have moved in and out of his account.

Daily Mail : A secret stalker. Witnesses who won't talk... but the most tantalising question of all is... Who's got the spy-in-the-bag's missing laptop?

A secret stalker. Witnesses who won't talk... but the most tantalising question of all is... Who's got the spy-in-the-bag's missing laptop?

By Sue Reid | September 3, 2010

Number 36 Alderney Street stands in a terrace of tall white houses with gleaming door knockers at the heart of a London enclave the posh estate agents call ‘alpha territory’.

The Queen’s cousin lives down the road of million-pound homes and for 30 years Mimmo d’Ischia, a nearby Italian eaterie, has been a favourite of the Duchess of Cornwall and film stars Joan Collins and Anthony Hopkins.

Even this week, after the strange murder at Number 36 of young British spy Gareth Williams, there is little to show much has changed.

Nothing, that is, apart from the frantic comings and goings by men in suits from the British secret service, MI6, and detectives from Scotland Yard.

The house is where the decomposing body of Mr Williams, padlocked into a sports holdall and thrown into the bath of his top-floor flat, was discovered by police at 6.30 on the evening of Monday, August 23.

The maths genius, loner and cycling fanatic had not turned up for work as a cipher and codes expert at the headquarters of MI6, half a mile from Alderney Street, on the banks of the Thames at Vauxhall.

Today, the mystery over his death is deepening. Was he killed because of his professional life or his private one? Was it an impromptu killing or one that was planned?

Did he die in the top-floor flat after letting in his own killer? Or was he murdered elsewhere by someone who stole his flat keys, before carrying him back and dumping him?

Is it possible that despite his reputation for clean living, an aspect of his private life has led the young spy into danger? Scotland Yard has not ruled out that a woman, or indeed a man, may have been at his flat in the hours before his death. Was she or he invited there to play a sex game that went wrong?

It is, of course, just another question that needs to be answered about the spy who was ‘on loan’ to MI6 from UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the country’s top-secret listening post in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

When Mr Williams’s gruesome death first became public knowledge, there were lurid and unproven rumours about his private affairs.

Speculation that ‘bondage equipment and gay paraphernalia’ had been found at the flat was later dismissed as ‘garbage’ by Scotland Yard.

His parents, Ian and Ellen, who live in a bungalow in Holyhead, Anglesey, were horrified at the unsavoury claims about their bachelor son’s supposedly wild homosexual lifestyle.

The family insist he lived an exemplary existence and was not gay. A friend of Mr Williams said that the spy was ‘asexual’, and showed little interest in having a relationship with a man or a woman.

A first post-mortem failed to find the cause of his death. A second examination of his body took place a few days ago to unravel if he was drugged, poisoned or smothered. The results of this are still being analysed.

Yet, in a worrying twist, the Mail understands that a turf war has broken out between the police and MI6, with some police officers ­complaining that the spooks are ­hindering their investigation into the spy’s death.

The Mail has learned from sources close to the investigation that Mr Williams informed MI6 that he believed he was being followed in the months before his death, though murder squad detectives say they have not been told this.

This suggests that every aspect of his life at work and at home should be put under the microscope. However, there is frustration at Scotland Yard that the ‘security concerns’ of MI6 are stopping this wide-sweep inquiry happening.

Police attempts to quiz two spies still working at GCHQ who knew Mr Williams well have been unsuccessful and some detectives suspect they have been ‘blocked’ by both MI6 and GCHQ. It is also understood the murder squad was unable to get to one of his closest friends, a former GCHQ spy.

The man lived at the Alderney Street safe house in 2005 and visited there earlier this year. ‘He knows the day-to-day movements of Mr Williams and that is why he is important,’ added our source.

Scotland Yard murder detectives were this week also waiting to quiz another former GCHQ employee, who suddenly moved to America from Cheltenham six weeks ago and is said to be a ‘best friend’ of the dead codebreaker.

There is also friction between MI6 and GCHQ over the level of protection given to Mr Williams while on his London secondment. ‘Some people feel that he was sent to MI6 on secondment as a goodwill gesture and the intelligence service then “lost” GCHQ’s man,’ said a source.

It is a troubling backdrop to any major murder investigation, especially one into an expert codebreaker who was playing a significant role in protecting Britain.

Meanwhile, the Mail has learned of intriguing riddles about his death. The spy’s brain showed no signs of bruising, indicating he was not knocked unconscious before he died.

This has led to speculation that he may have been killed with a tiny injection of poison, possibly through his inner ear. If so, the needle mark would be almost invisible to the naked eye.

Another riddle is that Mr Williams’s personal computer is thought to be missing. He had designed the small machine to his own specifications and it ‘cannot be found’, the Mail has been told.

The laptop, which Scotland Yard refuses to officially confirm is missing, is crucial to the investigation. It could be a vital window on Mr Williams’s private life, his innermost thoughts, any transfers to and from his online bank account and would reveal if he had money problems.

Importantly, it will help trace his movements between the time he was last seen alive, on August 15, and the discovery of his body eight days later in his flat, where there was no sign of a break-in.

This will help pinpoint the time of his death, which is essential to finding a killer. Mr Williams’s bank and credit cards were used during these crucial eight days.

Troublingly, because it is not known when he died, it has been impossible to discover if they were used by him, or someone who had stolen them from him and was involved in his murder.

In a further conundrum, one of the first police officers who entered the flat after Mr Williams was ­discovered dead saw some white powder on several surfaces in the kitchen and living room. Although this could prove innocent, the ­powder is being tested in case it is cocaine or another drug.

In particular, some Scotland Yard detectives believe a public appeal for sightings of Mr Williams in the missing days before his death is essential to solve the murder mystery.

It would involve the release of more photographs and details about his lifestyle, but it is understood to have been ruled out by MI6, which is worried that terrorists might use the information to identify other British spies and their own secrets.

It all sounds disturbingly similar to the case of 28-year-old journalist Jonathan Moyle, another British intelligence agent, whose body was found hanging inside a hotel wardrobe in the Chilean capital Santiago in 1990 with a padded noose around his neck.

He had been investigating a company — ostensibly for his British defence magazine — which was modifying helicopters, possibly to carry nuclear weapons, to sell to the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

But his friends and family believe security sources planted the ­suggestion that he had died while engaged in an auto-erotic act and tried to stand in the way of the family’s own inquiries.

It took his outraged father to expose the cover-up — and find out that his son had been drugged, ­suffocated, injected with a lethal substance and then strung up in the wardrobe, a view supported by the British coroner, who returned a verdict of unlawful killing at his inquest eight years later.

This week, the Mail traced Mr Moyle’s former fiancée Annette Kissenbeck to her home in Germany, where she said the latest death of a British ‘spy in a bag’ brings back painful memories.

‘The British intelligence services tried to smear Jonathan by suggesting he was sexually deviant,’ she said. ‘I felt so helpless and alone trying to stand up to what was untrue against such powerful and shadowy forces.’.

The rumour that Moyle indulged in auto-erotic experiences first ­surfaced at a British embassy cocktail party attended by journalists in Santiago, adding weight to the Chilean claim that he had died by his own hand.

Annette says both were smears to cover up the truth about the murder and the illicit trade with Iraq. ‘Jonathan had everything to live for. We were totally in love with each other and about to get ­married,’ said Annette this week at her home in Essen, where she works as one of Germany’s leading child doctors.

A year after his death, a Chilean judicial investigation concluded that Moyle had been murdered. But two years later, in 1993, the murder investigation was wrapped up without a single suspect being arrested.

‘Jonathan just wasn’t the type to be depressed. And never in all the time we were together was there any hint that he was into auto-erotic sex,’ said Annette this week.

Even today, she is convinced that the spread of false information was deliberately orchestrated by shadowy figures in British secret services to cover up their own knowledge of the helicopter sales and to protect the UK’s relationship with Chile.

So could the extraordinary story of Jonathan Moyle shed any light on the death of Gareth Williams?

Williams played a key role in the world’s most sensitive and ­secretive electronic intelligence-gathering system.

He was helping to oversee a network called Echelon. It links ­satellites and super computers in Britain and the nations of our Western allies, including the U.S.

Set up to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Echelon now eavesdrops on terrorists, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, threatening British security.

In particular, it listens for key words and phrases that might ­suggest that an attack on this country is being planned by overseas terrorist cells or home-grown subversives.

He was signed up by GCHQ at 21 while studying for a post-graduate maths certificate at Cambridge, a favourite recruiting ground for the secret services.

His career path was meteoric. Williams had two passports, which allowed him to travel incognito if necessary. Soon he was working for long spells in Afghanistan for our secret services.

Four times a year, he paid visits to America to liaise with the powerful National Security Agency in Fort Meade in Maryland.

When he died, he was living rent-free at Alderney Street, which was bought by MI6 as a ‘safe house’ ten years ago.

It is one of many owned by MI6 dotted around Pimlico, which have been swept for listening devices and kept under surveillance. They are used to put up visiting operatives or to conduct de-briefings in total secrecy.

Mr Williams was due to return to his former flat, rented from a landlady, in Cheltenham yesterday and start back at work at GCHQ later this month.

An associate of Mr Williams told the Mail this week: ‘Gareth really didn’t like London, although he was sent on secondment to MI6 more than once.

‘He suffered it because he had to for his career. He did make a few friends, mainly others sent from GCHQ in Cheltenham who also lived at this MI6 place in Alderney Street.

‘They are the people that know the most about how he spent his spare time over the past few months and MI6 must let the police murder squad speak to them.’

So will the truth about death of the young spy Gareth Williams ever come to light amid the smears and secrecy of the murky world of espionage?

Today, almost a fortnight after the tragic discovery at 36 Alderney Street, you wouldn’t be wise to put money on it. Even if your name was James Bond or George Smiley.

Daily Mail : The dead MI6 spy was an unsung hero, so why are shadowy figures trying to blacken his name?

The dead MI6 spy was an unsung hero, so why are shadowy figures trying to blacken his name?

By Melanie Phillips | August 30, 2010

George Smiley would never have behaved like this. Ever since the body of the GCHQ code-breaker Gareth Williams was discovered stuffed into a hold-all in his bath, we have been treated to a stream of unsavoury and contradictory leaks from mysterious sources.

The story is throwing up more obfuscatory trade-craft than a John Le Carré novel. Of course, the secret intelligence world must of necessity work in a deeply shadowy way - concealing its tracks, laying false trails and employing sundry other means of disinformation.

It does so in order to keep this country safe from its enemies. So much is generally accepted.

But when one of its number is found apparently murdered in a flat in central London, you do not expect these black arts of subterfuge to continue.

You certainly don't expect them to thwart the investigation of an apparently sinister death or cause further and needless distress to the dead man's bereaved parents.

Yet this is precisely what seems to have happened after the discovery of Mr Williams's body.

It appears that he was no ordinary GCHQ operative but a vitally important contributor to the defence of the West.

A brilliant mathematical boffin, he was helping to oversee a network which links satellites and super-computers in Britain and the U.S. with those of other key allies.

He had also worked on breaking coded Taliban messages, helping to save the lives of countless British and other Nato soldiers under attack in Afghanistan.

So his death would seem to have serious security implications of one kind or another - including the possibility that he was murdered by enemies of this country.

Yet shadowy unnamed sources started putting it about that 'bondage equipment and gay paraphernalia' were found in his flat.

The implication was that his death was caused by some seedy sadomasochistic practice that went wrong.

At a stroke, Mr Williams's reputation was trashed - transforming him from an unsung hero of his nation into the sordid author of his own terminal misfortune.

Not surprisingly, this planted suggestion greatly upset his grieving family, who protested at the 'horrible and completely fictitious accounts of his private life'.

More remarkably, it was refuted in the strongest possible terms by the police who said no such paraphernalia had been found in Mr Williams's flat - although they wouldn't comment on the suggestion that he was indeed gay.

None of us has the faintest idea why or how he died. But why would these shadowy sources - whoever they may be - want to blacken his name like this? Of course, it is possible that he was killed by a lover.

Most killings, after all, have a rather more prosaic cause than an assassination perpetrated by clandestine agents.

But why plant this suggestion - and in the most lurid and apparently untruthful way - before the police have even established how or when he met his death?

Maybe a clue lies in the further claim that some £18,000 disappeared from one of his bank accounts two months ago - money reportedly moved 'by complex means', leading to speculation that Mr Williams was being blackmailed.

It is possible there is an entirely innocent explanation for all that, too. But why are we being treated to this drip-drip of partial, sensational and contradictory information while a criminal investigation is going on?

It all sounds disturbingly similar to the case of Jonathan Moyle, another British intelligence agent whose body was found hanging inside a hotel wardrobe in the Chilean capital Santiago in 1990 with a padded noose around his neck.

He had been investigating a company which was modifying helicopters, possibly to carry nuclear weapons, to sell to the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

But MI6 planted the suggestion that he had died while engaged in an auto-erotic act. It took his outraged father to discover that his son had probably been drugged, suffocated, injected with a lethal substance and then strung up in the wardrobe - a view supported by the British coroner, who returned a verdict of unlawful killing at his inquest eight years later.

In the Williams case, it appears that a turf-war has broken out between the police and the intelligence world, with the police complaining that the spooks are hindering their investigation.

Shadowy

So just what does the intelligence world want to cover up in this case? Of course, it is possible that disclosure of the precise circumstances of Mr Williams's death would compromise national security in some way.

But it is also possible there is a less honourable motive for the dirty tricks being played in this investigation.


Maybe the intelligence world doesn't want us to know that it didn't vet Mr Williams thoroughly enough; or alternatvely that it shockingly failed to protect the life of its invaluable code-breaker from foreign or terrorist assailants; or maybe it wants to conceal the identity of a country or group that killed him in order to serve some diplomatic end or other.

Who knows? All we can see is that some very peculiar game is being played around this man's demise.

And it's hard not to put this together with that other mystery over the death of the weapons expert Dr David Kelly in 2003.

He was said to have committed suicide during the controversy over the Iraq war - a conclusion endorsed by the official inquiry that replaced an inquest into his death.

Yet the evidence suggests that he could not have killed himself, as we have been told, by slitting his ulnar artery and taking an overdose of pills - not least because there was not much blood at the scene and fewer than one tablet was found in his stomach.

We also learn that people who wanted or needed to give evidence at the inquiry were never called to do so.

Now the pathologist who inspected his body has insisted this was a 'textbook suicide' - an account that raises more questions than it answers.

Conspiracy

True, the idea that Dr Kelly was murdered and that this was covered up in an official conspiracy seems too implausible to be true.

Yet he did possess unique expertise in biological weapons intelligence. So there was a long list of terror organisations or rogue states that may have wanted him dead.

And if it is indeed true that the intelligence world sometimes plants false information that key operatives who have been murdered have instead been responsible for their own deaths, then the questions about Dr Kelly's 'suicide' become even more urgent.

No one expects the intelligence services to reveal their trade secrets or to compromise national security.

But they are also the servants of a free society. And that means they must observe due process - which means unexplained deaths must be properly investigated.

That means a transparent and thorough investigation. It means holding a proper inquest where evidence about the cause of death can be properly aired and interrogated. And it means not dripping salacious snippets manipulatively into the public domain.

We must also not lose sight of the fact that, however they died, the loss of both David Kelly and now gareth Williams has deprived us of two of the most brilliant minds in the intelligence world.

With their deaths, the defences of this country have been left that much weaker.

The coincidence of two random and unfortunate events? Perhaps. Who knows?

At this rate, none of us will do so.

Daily Mail : Police find 'no evidence' that dead MI6 agent was gay

Police find 'no evidence' that dead MI6 agent was gay

By Daily Mail Reporter | August 30, 2010

Investigators have found no evidence so far that murdered MI6 spy Gareth Williams was gay, it emerged yesterday.

His family and friends have said there was nothing to suggest he was gay and have reacted furiously to ‘untruths’ that he led a colourful homosexual lifestyle, claiming the rumours could be government smears aimed at discrediting him.

Police inquiries have supported their view that he was not gay. Scotland Yard has denied speculation that gay paraphernalia was discovered in the flat or that there is any link to a male escort.

Mr Williams was found dead last Monday at his £400,000 flat in Pimlico, central London, just half a mile from MI6 headquarters. His body was discovered in the bath stuffed into a sports holdall.

Although it is highly likely that he was murdered, the post mortem revealed no signs of a violent struggle. Toxicology results to show if poison, drugs, alcohol or asphyxiation could be the cause may not come back until later this week.

One line of enquiry is that the cipher and codes specialist could have died in a bizarre accident and that his body was later put in the bag.

Detectives are also looking at whether he may have been killed by a foreign intelligence agency seeking to stop his work on intercepting messages and code-breaking, the Telegraph reported.

The Metropolitan police continue to describe his death as ‘suspicious and unexplained’.

It was reported yesterday that £18,000 had also disappeared from Mr Williams’ bank account two months ago and had yet to be traced.

Detectives are trying to establish where the money, said to be moved by ‘complex means’, ended up, it is claimed.

The sum was reportedly moved from Mr Williams’ online deposit account. It is understood that his salary was paid into another account.

There may be a perfectly innocent explanation for the transaction, it could also suggest that Mr Williams was being blackmailed or selling information.

A security source said any ‘unexplained’ movements of money in the Mr Williams’ bank accounts were being scrutinised for clues as to how he met his death.

It emerged yesterday that Mr Williams was thought to have made at least two trips to Afghanistan, helping break coded Taliban messages at MI6’s key listening station in Kabul.

He is also said to have played an important role in the development of a highly sensitive and secret electronic intelligence gathering system called Echelon and was helping with a new system to monitor internet phone calls such as Skype.

There were also reports that Mr Williams, who was single and lived alone, had frequented a gay bar in Vauxhall, South London just yards from MI6 headquarters.

There have been no arrests and on Friday Scotland Yard issued an appeal to anyone who knew Mr Williams or may have seen him in the eight days before his body was found to come forward.

Daily Star : SPY PROBE FOR LINKS WITH GAY COMMUNITY

SPY PROBE FOR LINKS WITH GAY COMMUNITY

By Jerry Lawton | August 30, 2010

POLICE probing spy Gareth Williams’s bizarre death are trying to establish whether he was involved in the gay community.

Customers in a gay bar on the doorstep of MI6’s HQ said the 31-year-old maths genius was a regular visitor and “very sweet guy”.

Medical student Lemuel Miller said the spy had frequently visited trendy Barcode in Vauxhall, south London.

“I often saw Gareth here and spent an evening last summer chatting to him and a group of other guys,” he said.

“He was a very sweet guy. He was intelligent but never talked about his work.”

Fellow regular Matt Green, 38, a music producer, added: “He was shy but seemed comfortable here.”

But yesterday Gareth’s family insisted his reputation was being smeared to take the pressure off the security services.

And his uncle William Hughes said the secret agent, who had twice been to Afghanistan to crack the Taliban’s secret codes, had a girlfriend for the past year.

Mr Hughes said: “It never crossed our minds that he could be gay.”

Gareth was found dead in a sports bag in his flat in Pimlico, London.

Detectives believe unlocking the mysteries surrounding his private life is ­vital in determining if his death was triggered by sex, money, or terrorism. But they have reportedly been frustrated by security chiefs blocking their inquiries “at every turn”.

Officers are also investigating Gareth’s bank accounts. Three sums of £2,000 were paid in and immediately withdrawn, the last time on the eve of his death, suggesting he was possibly being blackmailed.

Express : SPY FAMILY’S FURY AT BLACKMAIL ‘LIES’

SPY FAMILY’S FURY AT BLACKMAIL ‘LIES’

By John Twomey | August 30, 2010

THE family of murdered spy Gareth Williams yesterday dismissed claims that he was being blackmailed.

Relatives hit out at “untrue rumours” as detectives probed money transfers totalling £24,000 to and from the code breaker’s accounts.

The biggest single movement of cash is believed to be £18,000 withdrawn from one of his accounts eight weeks ago.

Three sums of £2,000 paid in and then out of the 31-yearold’s accounts on consecutive days are also being examined. Two bundles of £500 – one in an envelope and the other tied with an elastic band – are said to have been found in the flat where he died.

But relatives of the brilliant mathematician are convinced the transfers and the bundles of cash all have totally innocent explanations. They say the allegations of blackmail and rumours about his private life have now become “intolerable”.

Mr Williams’ uncle, Bill Hughes, said: “We know nothing of this. It’s another example of unsupported rumours being allowed to circulate. To the best of our knowledge, Gareth wasn’t gay and wasn’t being blackmailed.” Mr Williams was found dead in the bath of his top-floor flat in Pimlico, central London, last Monday.

His body had been stuffed into a sports holdall and may have lain there for up to eight days. The bag was padlocked. One theory that detectives are working on is that Mr Williams knew his killer and let him into the flat. A post-mortem examination last week proved inconclusive. Further tests are being carried out.

Forensic experts returned to the scene of the murder on Friday in a bid to find clues which will solve the mystery. Mr Willaims worked for the Government’s listening post GCHQ in Cheltenham and was on secondment to MI6. He made frequent trips to America, including visits to the National Security Agency’s Fort Meade base in Maryland.

He is said to have played a key role in the world’s most sensitive electronic intelligence gathering system, linking satellites and super computers in Britain, the US and elsewhere. Murder squad detectives are trying to piece together a detailed picture of the last days of the spy’s life.

He was last seen alive on August 15 in London. Inquiries have include tracing the spy’s neighbours and previous tenants of the flat where he lived. Police are also understood to be asking about another GCHQ worker who used to live in the same house as the murdered man.

News Of The World : Murder spook had rainbow wig and make-up

Murder spook had rainbow wig and make-up

By Lucy Panton, Crime Editor | August 29, 2010

MURDERED MI6 spy Gareth Williams was found padlocked inside a sports bag with a rainbow wig at his flat, the News of the World can exclusively reveal.

Williams, 31-a brilliant mathematician on secondment to foreign spy service MI6 from eavesdropping base GCHQ-was found dead on Monday, eight days after he was last seen.

It was initially reported that his body had been stuffed in a suitcase.

But we can reveal he was PADLOCKED inside a red North Face sports holdall.

Our revelations today give the first accurate picture of the bizarre circumstances surrounding the death.

The alarm was raised by Williams' worried sister Ceri Subbe after he failed to return her calls.

Officers who arrived at the rented £400,000 top-floor flat in Pimlico, central London, described it as pristinely clean with no sign of disturbance or blood.

They found a number of hair-pieces including a flamboyant rainbow WIG and a MAKE-UP collection.

And in another twist it emerged that cycling fanatic Williams was expected to join friends at a TRANSVESTITE comedy club shortly before his death. Williams' private life is now a major part of the inquiry into his death.

A security source told us: "It is a baffling set of circumstances to find a body in. This man's flat was incredibly clean, not your typical bachelor pad.

"There were a number of wigs and some make-up found which have led to questions over whether he was a cross-dresser. Police found no signs of disturbance or anything to suggest a struggle and it does not appear anything was taken."

Two laptops including an expensive Apple Mac, memory sticks and two iPhones were among valuables still in the flat.

The security source added: "With so many unanswered questions from the scene it is hard to give the family the answers they so desperately want about how their son died."

Police are now probing CCTV footage around the flat, a short distance from MI6's HQ beside the Thames.

The source added: "Until the toxicology tests come back no one can speculate on the cause of death and until they know that they will not class it as a murder."

We can reveal that Mr Williams had a withered hand following a cycling accident.

A relative revealed how his hand was "twisted and damaged" and left him unable to use it properly.

Downing Street, domestic intelligence agency MI5 and Scotland Yard are being kept informed about the case.

Senior Government figures are concerned that someone with so many question marks over his private life could hold a post in which he could be vulnerable to blackmail.

Officers are probing his bank accounts after reports of several deposits of around £2,000. One theory is Williams was a blackmail victim and was transferring money into his account to pay off a tormentor.

Family members have insisted they knew nothing of a gay or cross-dressing lifestyle.

On Friday his parents Ian and Ellen and their family released a statement saying: "Gareth was a generous, loving son, brother and friend."

Daily Mail : Investigation into death of British spy Gareth Williams takes another mystifying turn: What happened to 18K in spy's bank?

Investigation into death of British spy Gareth Williams takes another mystifying turn: What happened to 18K in spy's bank?

* Forensic accountants called in to examine Gareth Williams's bank account
* Detectives question staff at Thames boating club
* Police increasingly frustrated at lack of help from MI6

By Ian Gallagher And Abul Taher | August 29, 2010

The investigation into the death of British spy Gareth Williams took another mystifying turn last night with the claim that £18,000 disappeared from one of his bank accounts two months ago – and cannot be immediately traced.

According to a source close to the invest­igation, forensic accountants have been called in by detectives to try to establish where the money, apparently moved by ‘complex means’, ended up.

The Mail on Sunday has been told that the sum was moved from Mr Williams’s
Barclays online deposit account. It is understood that his salary was paid into a Cheltenham & Gloucester account.

Last night there was no independent confirmation of the claim which, if correct, will inevitably fuel speculation that the 31-year-old cipher and codes specialist may have been blackmailed.

It has been reported that he may have been selling information and was seeking to hide the money, possibly offshore. Scotland Yard declined to comment last night on either allegation.

The source said that police acknowledge it is equally possible that there is an innocent explanation for the money’s disappearance. Mr Williams reportedly led a frugal lifestyle – a passion for cycling apparently dominating his life outside work – and it simply may be that he was an assiduous saver.

Other reports have claimed that three sums of £2,000 were paid into Mr Williams’s bank account on consecutive days and then withdrawn on consecutive days in the weeks before his death.

However, sources suggest that it is likely that these deposits were the £2,000 tax-free monthly allowance the spy received while he was in London on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, the Government listening post in Cheltenham.

The Mail on Sunday has also been told, meanwhile, that two bundles of cash – £500 in each – were found in the London flat where Mr Williams was found dead last week. One bundle was in an envelope, the other was said to have been bound with an elastic band.

There is nothing to suggest a sinister reason for their presence, but sources say they may be significant because they were left behind. Police would would not comment on this claim last night.

Investigators suspect Mr Williams may have known his killer as there was no sign of forced entry at his top-floor flat in Pimlico, where police forensic officers in white protective suits were working yesterday. At 4pm they took away two bags of evidence.

'He also said that the Government met his rent, that’s how he could afford to live in Pimlico. He was a loner.’

In another intriguing development, The Mail on Sunday has been told that police have been making inquiries about another GCHQ worker who used to live in the same flat. They are said to be examining CCTV footage taken from a boating club this man belonged to on the Thames, near MI6 headquarters.

Detectives visited the Westminster Boating Base, which helps children learn sailing and kayaking, two days after Mr Williams’ body was found – and interviewed its manager Kevin Burk for more than an hour. They also looked at video of sailing trips which the man went on. It is believed that the detectives may have taken some of the recordings with them for further analysis.

Detectives then called Mr Burk the following day, interviewing him for another hour by telephone. They gave him strict orders not to talk to the Press or the public. It is understood he was asked detailed questions about the former colleague of Mr Williams, who The Mail on Sunday has agreed not to name. The man is thought to have moved out of the flat six months ago.

Neighbour Stephen Barnes, who first met the man two years ago, said: ‘This chap told me he worked for the civil service, in the technology side. He also said that the Government met his rent, that’s how he could afford to live in Pimlico. He was a loner.’

Mr Barnes, who runs a medical supplies company from his home, was also interviewed and detectives asked him to supply all the information he had on the man.

The investigation into Mr Williams’s death has been beset from the outset by a number of difficulties, including claims of a frustrating lack of help from MI6, and unexplained avenues of inquiry.

But the biggest problem faced so far has been the failure to discover how Mr Williams died.

‘We can’t even say for sure that he was murdered,’ said a Scotland Yard spokesman.

The results of a post mortem are not expected for at least another week. And while he was last seen on August 15 in London – and was found in his flat eight days later – it is not known exactly when he died.

‘This has had the effect of elongating the inquiry,’ said a police source.

‘For one thing it means that there is much more CCTV to go through. Everything is taking a lot of time.’

While Scotland Yard has been reluctant to comment on aspects of the crime scene, it strongly refuted suggestions that ‘bondage equipment and gay paraphernalia’ were found in the flat.

‘Those reports are garbage,’ said a spokesman, who also dismissed suggestions that gay contact magazines were found. But he declined to comment on various claims about Mr Williams’s private life, including suggestions that he was gay and a cross-dresser.

Last night his family were said to be ‘furious’ that officers investigating his killing had allowed false claims of a wild homosexual lifestyle to gather momentum, with his parents Ian and Ellen feeling ‘let down’ by the failure to scotch the speculation sooner.

Mr Williams’s uncle, William Hughes, said: ‘Gareth’s name and reputation were being destroyed by these horrible and completely fictitious accounts of his private life.’

After Scotland Yard dismissed the allegations, Mr Hughes said: ‘Of course we are relieved – hugely relieved – that these statements have finally been put out by the police, but what took them so long?

‘The police have known since his body was first found that there was none of this material at the scene. They knew how painful it was for the family to read these untrue, salacious accounts . . . they could have stamped on the speculation on day one, but chose not to. It was devastating for our family to have to read these details about Gareth. It was not the Gareth we knew.

‘To the best of our knowledge, Gareth was not gay and he has never had any interest in the things that were said about him. We hope the denials from the police will now end the speculation.’

Independent : MI6 death: Murder most strange

MI6 death: Murder most strange

Jonathan Owen tries to determine the facts about the death of intelligence officer Gareth Williams, and asks experts for their views on a real-life spy mystery

Jonathan Owen | August 29, 2010

The Metropolitan Police were under mounting pressure last night to bring in counter-terrorism officers to investigate the death of Gareth Williams, the British intelligence officer whose decomposing body was found stuffed in a sports bag in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London, last Monday.

Officers from the Met's Homicide and Serious Crime Command are understood to be furious at being stonewalled by Britain's secretive intelligence agencies. Detectives claim to have been "blocked" from interviewing potentially crucial witnesses, such as Mr Williams's "best friend", a female colleague at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), who was posted to the US last month.

Counter-terrorism officers are security vetted, which would make it harder for intelligence agencies to withhold information on the grounds of security clearance, say detectives. "It's a big cover-up... The security services obviously don't want the police to pry too deeply," said a police source.

It emerged yesterday that police are investigating three sums of £2,000 paid into Mr Williams's account on consecutive days, and then withdrawn on consecutive days, with the last transaction on the eve of his killing. The money trail has heightened concerns that his death may present a national security risk. Mr Williams was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ and was a regular visitor to the US National Security Agency HQ, Fort Meade.

His murder is unprecedented in that it took place just a short walk from MI6 and has seen a police investigation undertaken amid a frenzy of public speculation. Even the basic fact that he was murdered has yet to be officially confirmed, with a post mortem failing to discover the cause of death, despite reports he had been stabbed and found dumped in a sports bag in his bath. Police will only describe it as a "suspicious and unexplained death", and tests are under way to establish how the 30-year-old mathematician from Anglesey died. The results are expected this week. And after initially claiming he had been dead for two weeks before his body was found, police said on Friday that he had been in London from 11 August, with the last sighting of him on 15 August.

Mr Williams's family hit out yesterday at speculation in some newspapers that he was a cross-dressing homosexual who may have been killed by a gay lover. His uncle, William Hughes, said: "The family are concerned it may be an attempt to put false, unkind details about Gareth's private life into the public domain to diminish him and take attention away from the security services he worked so loyally for."

Sir Paul Lever, Former chair of Joint Intelligence Committee

"If you want to dispel a suggestion that something is work-related, you inevitably imply it's to do with the person's non-work life... ergo their private life, so you end up perhaps implying things that may distress his family. I would be very surprised if his employers were deliberately setting out to smear him."

Annie Machon, Former MI5 agent

"The trouble is that it's so murky at the moment. It could be misdirection ... towards some sort of sexual thing that went wrong. But there's also the fact that he was working on secure communications... the SIM cards and telephone laid out indicate the killer was aware of where he worked and was letting people know that."

Mark Birdsall, Editor 'Eye Spy' magazine

"The fact that he was in a holdall is a classic indication that the body was going to be moved. There's something not quite right here, but I think the story is being created to give the ordinary man in the street the opinion, 'well, he was involved in some sort of lovers' tiff'... I think the whole background about Mr Williams is being manipulated, possibly to disguise what he was up to, which is natural. You put out a cover story to disguise the real operation."

David Wilson, Professor of Criminology, University of Central England

"In the vast majority of murders you don't look for a Hollywood motive, you look for the most banal motive – the most banal motives are love, rage, and jealousy... I'm absolutely convinced with virtually every serious crime I've been involved with that there's a great deal of misinformation... when one talks to press officers of any government agency they have a line that they try to feed."

'John Smith', A former head of GCHQ

"This is first and foremost a personal tragedy. Clearly it's unwelcome that it is someone working for the intelligence services who might have been working for anyone else, and it isn't yet clear quite what the ramifications beyond that might be. People are going spare [at GCHQ/MI6] because there is a public relations crisis to handle. As a precautionary measure, they will be looking at how much this chap knew and how much he could have communicated to anyone."

Rupert Allason, Espionage author & former Tory MP

"The only security concern regarding Gareth Williams's death would be if there was evidence that classified information had been compromised. Doubtless SIS and GCHQ security staff are pursuing those lines and a search of his flat and laptop would be top of the list. In the absence of any indication that there had been a breach of security there would not appear to be any other issues, apart perhaps from one: which police officer tipped off the media to the link with Vauxhall Cross?"

Prof Anthony Glees, Director, Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, University of Birmingham

"I don't think he would have been murdered because of what he knew but because of his private life. If his private life brought him into contact with someone who went on to kill him, he was a risk-taker... If you do risky things, you may not be blackmailable but you may still be a security risk because your risk-taking may bring you into contact with people who might try to exploit this trait to get secrets out of you."

James Bamford, Author of three bestsellers on the US national security agency (NSA)

"Rather than a 'spy' in the James Bond sense of the word, he was far more likely a routine cryptanalyst. It is also very unlikely, especially given his sexual interests, that there is any foreign intelligence involvement in his death. Those things happen in the movies but rarely in real life. Nevertheless, I'm sure there is a very intense investigation, both at the NSA and GCHQ, into what accesses Williams had, his travels and his telephone, email and internet communications."

Stephen Dorril, Intelligence expert University of Huddersfield

"GCHQ has been sending people into the field in Afghanistan to monitor communications; they have small units of personnel who are doing field work instead of just being behind the desk, so they have obviously been working closely with MI6."

Nicholas Anderson, Former MI6 agent and author

"My first gut thought was that he couldn't have been a high-security risk as it took nearly two weeks for the FCO [Foreign & Commonwealth Office] employee assistance head to follow up on why he hadn't been at work. Granted, he may have had a job where he worked alone so he didn't have to report in, but most lone operators, like I used to be, report to somebody on a timely basis regardless."

Roger Graef, Broadcaster and criminologist

"The one thing we won't know is the truth. This is in the category of iconic crimes, when you don't ever expect to be told the real thing, and there are just too many reasons to keep it secret... None of it adds up: if he was such a hot shot at code breaking then presumably he'd have been protected... We are very unlikely to ever know what happened."

Prof Martin Innes, Director of the universities' police science institute at cardiff university

"If they've stuck him in a bag ready to be moved, if that was what happened, then that suggests someone a bit more intent on what it is they're trying to do... If the individual concerned is out there and dismembering the body, there's something else going on. But until we know that it's pretty difficult to say anything useful."

Michael Smith, Author of 'Six: A history of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service'

"No conversation I have had with anyone genuine within the intelligence community has given any information on this guy that would be any use in building up a picture of him other than off-the-record confirmation that he was a GCHQ employee who has been on attachment to MI6."

Herald Sun : Police play down money, sex allegations in British spy death

Police play down money, sex allegations in British spy death

August 28, 2010

BRITISH police have played down as “pure speculation” reports that thousands of pounds had passed through the bank account of a British spy shortly before he was found dead in his London apartment.

Three sums of £2,000 ($3,477) were said to have been paid into Gareth Williams' account on consecutive days, then withdrawn on consecutive days, prior to the discovery of his body stuffed into a sports bag in the bath at his London home.

Scotland Yard also denied a series of sexual allegations made against Williams by the security services sources who claimed that he was gay, a transvestite, possessed bondage paraphernalia and was linked to male escorts.

Investigators, led by the Metropolitan Police’s Homicide and Serious Crime Command with the security-vetted Counter Terror Command in a lesser role, dismissed outright many of those allegations.

There was no evidence of contact with male escorts, and no S&M gear was found in his apartment. Claims that Williams was stabbed and dismembered were also untrue, they said.

The claims, from usually reliable intelligence sources, and the vehement counter-claims of the police, led Williams’ family to believe that he is the victim of an MI6 smear campaign.

In a statement released Friday night, his family said the speculation was “very distressing.”

“Gareth was a generous, loving son, brother, and friend, and he was a very private person. He was a great athlete, and loved cycling and music,” they said.

“His loss has devastated us and we would ask that anyone with information to come forward and assist the police inquiry.”

An autopsy proved inconclusive. He had not been shot, nor were there any obvious signs of strangulation.

Further tests on his body will take place to determine whether he was asphyxiated or poisoned, and whether he had alcohol or drugs in his system.

The possibility that his death was related to issues of national security had not been ruled out, but was low on the list of detectives’ priorities, police said.

Daily Mail : Riddle of murder spy's money trail: Why, for three days in a row, was £2,000 paid into his account and then taken out?

Riddle of murder spy's money trail: Why, for three days in a row, was £2,000 paid into his account and then taken out?

By Charlotte Gill, Emily Andrews, Tom Kelly and James Tozer | August 28, 2010

Thousands of pounds mysteriously moved through the bank account of murdered MI6 spy Gareth Williams in the fortnight before his death.

Police sources say they are investigating three sums of £2,000 paid into his account on consecutive days, then withdrawn on consecutive days with the last transaction happening on the eve of his killing.

It is understood to have been established that the sums did not come from his £42,000 salary, and officers are trying to discover who supplied the money and why.

One theory being explored is that the movement of cash could indicate 31-year-old Mr Williams was a victim of blackmail and had transferred money from a savings account into his current account before using it to pay off his tormentor.

Another possibility is that he could have been selling information and was paid the money before transferring it into another account or passing it on to another informant.

There could also be a perfectly innocent explanation, with perhaps a friend or relative repaying the cipher and codes specialist for a loan and him putting the money in a different account.

It is understood that an internal row has broken out between the police and both the intelligence and security services, with ‘spooks’ effectively being accused of sabotaging the police operation.

A source claimed detectives have been ‘blocked’ from interviewing several potentially crucial witnesses.

Mr Williams’s ‘best friend’, a female colleague at the Government’s listening post, was posted to work for an intelligence agency linked to Pentagon in the U.S. five weeks ago.

The 25-year-old woman and her husband, who also knew Mr Williams, both worked at GCHQ in Cheltenham and were ‘suddenly’ transferred to Denver, Colorado, on secret duties.

Murder squad detectives are keen to speak to her in case she can offer any clues to why someone would want Mr Williams dead.

But they were informed this week by the security services that she was ‘unavailable’ for interview.

A second key security services witness, so far unnamed, who also knew Mr Williams, has also been put ‘off limits’ to the frustrated detectives.

The body of Mr Williams, a loner who loved cycling, was found stuffed in a sports bag in the bath at his £400,000 apartment half a mile from MI6 headquarters in London by officers on Monday afternoon.

He had been on secondment to MI6 for a year but was due to return next week to his position at the government listening post, GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

The Daily Mail revealed yesterday that he had flown to the National Security Agency, the Pentagon’s listening post nicknamed the ‘Puzzle Palace’, up to four times a year and returned from his last U.S. trip only weeks before his murder.

Investigators are awaiting the results of toxicology tests to discover if poison, drugs, alcohol or suffocation caused his death.

There are no outward signs of violence and Scotland Yard continues to describe his death as ‘suspicious and unexplained’.

One police source said: ‘There is near mutiny among the team.

‘The investigation is in complete disarray because most of the team thinks there should be a public appeal to garner potentially crucial information about Gareth Williams’s movements.

‘But they are being told "No", without any explanation or debate. It is assumed that it’s an order from on high.’

A second source added: ‘It is absolutely bizarre because SO15 (Counter Terror Command) are not conducting the inquiry – it is being handled by homicide command.

’It’s very strange but it explains why the spooks are blocking them. Officers in SO15 are security vetted but the homicide detectives are not.

‘The security services are not going to want to trust them with top-secret information. ‘They would only trust the SO15 officers. This guy may only have been a cipher but he clearly had access to secret material, and they won’t want ordinary police officers tramping all over it.’

Questions are now being asked over why the inquiry was given to murder squad detectives in the first place, rather than security-vetted counter terror officers.

One theory was that this was specifically demanded by the security services. The source added: ‘It’s clearly a big cover up, for whatever reason. The security services obviously don’t want the police to pry too deeply into this one.

‘So by insisting the inquiry is carried out by ordinary officers, who don’t have security clearance, they have an excuse to block them from access to sensitive information and key witnesses.

‘It makes it easier for the whole thing to be swept under the carpet. Why, we can only guess at.’ Publicly, the Metropolitan Police said the notion of any dispute was ‘absolute rubbish’ and said that ‘organised and well established procedures are in place to ensure collaborative and supportive working’.

Family's disgust at slurs about his private life

The family of Gareth Williams are ‘furious’ at lurid allegations circulating about his lifestyle and fear they could be a government smear campaign to discredit him and divert attention from the security services.

His uncle William Hughes, said the spy’s parents Ian and Ellen were ‘very, very upset about these untruths’.

Speculation has been rife that the spy was a transvestite who was murdered by a gay lover or killed in a sex game gone wrong.

The lurid reports were made in a series of newspapers but police chose not to issue a denial until last night.

Only after staying silent on the claims for three days did Scotland Yard finally state that there was no truth in reports of a link to a male escort and said that no bondage equipment or gay paraphernalia had been found at the London apartment where he was found dead.

Mr Hughes, who lives near Mr Williams’s parents in Anglesey, North Wales, said: ‘Someone, somewhere is trying to discredit Gareth with these untrue claims about his private life.

‘The family are concerned that it may be part of an attempt to put false and unkind personal details about Gareth’s private life into the public domain to diminish him and take attention away from the security services he worked so loyally for.

‘They are very, very angry. It is completely false. The lad had been away from home for a long time - we did not know much about his private life but it has never crossed any of our minds that he could be gay. It’s not the picture they have of their son.’

Mr and Mrs Williams are being supported by their daughter Ceri at the family home in Valley, Anglesey.

Mr Hughes, 62, said: ‘I have spoken to Gareth’s parents and they are not doing well at all. They are in a state of shock and struggling to come to terms with what has happened.

‘They have seen what has been in the papers and they are very, very upset about these untruths. It never crossed my mind that Gareth was that sort of person. He left home at a young age and what happened in his private life was his business.

‘When you have these rumours in the papers, it is most distressing. It is heartbreaking that he has died so young and his family have enough on their plate without having to read these stories.’

The spy’s former landlady, who for ten years rented a self-contained flat to him in the annexe of her home in Cheltenham, said he never brought anyone, male or female, back in the time he lived there.

Jenny Elliott said: ‘I would do his washing and hang it out to dry. I never noticed anything funny like that. He never came across as gay. Any time I went into his flat I never noticed anything untoward. I would even fold up his washing and put it into drawers.’

Friends too said there was no suggestion he could be gay. One schoolfriend, Dylan Parry, said: ‘Gareth was introverted and socially awkward. He wasn’t dashing or cavalier or a charmer, although he was extremely nice in a quiet way.

‘There has been a lot of speculation about his sexuality, but he was so introverted as to be asexual. He wasn’t able to form relationships because he was so obsessed with his maths studies.’