Guardian : The beguiling power of mystery that can make us forget a family's pain

The beguiling power of mystery that can make us forget a family's pain/

Our desire for life to be dramatic can lead us to merge real-life stories such as the death of Gareth Williams into fiction

Henry Porter | The Observer | May 6, 2012

The obvious, though almost entirely forgotten, truth about the deaths of the SIS cryptanalyst Gareth Williams and the British businessman Neil Heywood is that they were loved by their families and friends and this grief is no less than any of us would suffer.

But this barely registers when the public scents a real-life thriller – the appetite for intrigue and mystery quickly trumps any respect for the bereaved as we marvel at the artfulness of fate. Either the news is becoming more like thrillers or thriller writers are people of exceptional prescience who have somehow fracked the drama out of modern times with new precision.

In the Williams and Heywood deaths, it's really striking how they comply with the laws of mystery writing and, without changing a single detail, these exact circumstances could easily have been written into serviceable fiction.

In the Heywood murder, we have a police chief who takes refuge in the American consulate after alleging the murder; Heywood's main patron, an ambitious Maoist governor, destined for the top; and his wife, who is alleged to have had an affair with Heywood and who is also known to have imported hot air balloons from Somerset, as a means to conceal the illegal transfer of cash from China.

Like the Williams case, where the brilliant young victim was found locked into a red holdall, it is all too bizarre, much richer and more extravagant than most mystery writers have the capacity to imagine. Yet conventions are respected. In both stories, there is an unexplained death of a man who is engaged on secret, or at least highly secretive, work and who expires out of context – the old Harrovian Heywood was in China and Williams was killed in an anonymous flat in London, away from his home patch of Cheltenham. We are struck by their isolation and the lonely terror of their final moments, though to dwell on this is far from entertaining.

In both cases, families, colleagues and the authorities were slow to realise what had happened and it took time to establish that Williams and Heywood had in fact been killed. There were different degrees of cover-up in both stories and these suggest hinterlands of corruption and intrigue in Chinese and British authorities. We have no idea why these two apparently blameless individuals were murdered, exactly how they met their deaths or what was – or still is – at stake. In fiction, the whole thing would be wrapped up in under 500 pages by a heroically flawed, and therefore lovable, protagonist, who solves the murder and, by the by, exposes the conspiracy.

Here, the real world and fiction part company, because in neither case is there likely to be a completely satisfactory solution. Gareth Williams and Neil Heywood will be memorialised in headlines about the manner of their deaths (Spy in the Bag, Death in a Hotel Room), not by loving epitaphs. Life is rarely as neat or as just as fiction.

Yet there's good evidence that we desire a merger, or overlap, of reality and the fictive world – a demand for narrative in the news and a requirement that the works of the imagination should be based, as the movies say, on actual events. We want life to be melodramatic, because, despite impressions to the contrary and the hysteria of the war on terror, most human existence in the west today is peaceful and humdrum and bears out the theory in Steven Pinker's book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, that violence in history is in steady decline.

However, modern societies are beautifully set up to meet the plot demands of a thriller. We communicate with each other incessantly; we are at all times watched and photographed and traceable; and we move around a lot and are often far from home. (Incidentally, when I hear the words "a British businessman", my Pavlovian response is to expect trouble, as in any of the following verbs – murdered, jailed, extradited or disappeared.)

Reality has obliged us with high-concept melodrama, inconveniencing many a writer of hard-boiled dialogue and diabolic scenarios. "You couldn't make it up" is the phrase that springs to our lips as we contemplate jetliners piling into skyscrapers, US Navy Seals snuffing out Osama bin Laden – with the president and secretary of state on the other end of the live feed from Seal head cams – and the chief of the IMF ruling himself out of today's French presidential election by molesting a maid in a New York hotel that was miraculously wired for compromise.

You couldn't make it up, nor would you. As a writer of espionage fiction, I am not sure I would have dared to imagine Anna Chapman and the herds of Russian spies, grazing in America's suburbs and communicating with each other's laptops by coded wireless transmissions, while – and here is the bizarre and unimaginable part – conveying very little useful information to their spymasters in Moscow Centre. I would not have made up MI6's phony rock with its secret compartment, lying in a Moscow park, because it seems exactly like something a thriller writer would make up.

That story may provide a hint of what is going on. Not long after 9/11, I was on a book tour in Canada with a female novelist, who made a persuasive case that thriller writers had corrupted the imagination of mankind by enabling evil men such as Bin Laden to act out their extravagant fantasies. The constant drip of conspiracy and demonic plotting had changed us for the worse, she argued, rather like porn distorts sexual behaviour.

The first proper thriller writer was Erskine Childers, who in 1903 published Riddle of the Sands, a novel slightly less thrilling than Childers's own life, which was ended by a firing squad in 1922. But not before he shook hands with its members and told them: "Take a step or two forward, lads – it'll be easier that way." It was as though Childers had jumped out of one of his own novels. There was a confusion of author and character; his fiction was somehow decreeing how his life should end.

Ever since then, writers of intrigue have also been participants in the great game (Maugham, Buchan, Fleming, Greene, le Carré) and have benefited hugely from their experience.

Those who do not have that time in the trenches take care to stand close to power and politics and it would be odd if, over the course of a century of this relationship, some kind of exchange did not occur.

Daily Mail : Did spy-in-bag killer slip back into flat through skylight to cover his tracks? New theory emerges over MI6 codebreaker death

Did spy-in-bag killer slip back into flat through skylight to cover his tracks? New theory emerges over MI6 codebreaker death

* Theory rival spy 'trained in the dark arts of the secret services' murdered British agent
* Mystery of second mobile phone containing video of victim dancing naked in nothing but cowboy boots

By Daniel Miller | May 6, 2012

Detectives investigating the mysterious death of the body-in-the-bag spy believe a killer could have slipped back into his flat through a skylight to cover his tracks, it has been claimed.

MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams was found dead in his London flat in 2010. A coroner ruled that he was 'probably killed illegally and his family remain convinced he was the victim of a rival agent.

Many close to the case believe he was assassinated by a spy working for foreign powers because of his work for MI6 and the US National Security Agency.

Speculation over the exact nature of his work has been growing since Foreign Secretary William Hague signed a public interest in order to stop details being released on security grounds.

It has been claimed that MI6 and the government eavesdropping centre GCHQ, to which Williams was attached, have been working on a computer virus designed to disrupt Iran's nuclear programme.

Questions are also being asked as to how MI6 came into possession of a second iPhone belonging to Mr Williams when Police found only one at his flat.

The agency handed over the mobile containing a video of Mr Williams dancing naked except for a pair of cowboy boots after his death was discovered.

However MI6 workers are forbidden from taking their personal phones into work and experts believe it is unlikely Williams would have risked bringing in a phone containing such a video.

Curiously the iPhone discovered by police searching the flat had been completely wiped of all memory.

Investigators are now believed to be working on a theory that the second phone was taken from the flat after Williams died but before police conducted a thorough search of the property.

MI6 regulations mean efforts are made to contact any employees who do not arrive at work by 10pm, yet Mr Williams' disappearance was not reported for eight days.

Another irregularity was the fact that heating in the flat had been turned up full blast - possibly because it would have accelerated the rate at which the body decomposed - helping to destroy any evidence.

The Sunday Mirror newspaper reports an intelligence source as saying: 'It's never been mentioned that there is a skylight but it was pretty clear to a lot of people in the case that there was no better way for the killer to get back into the flat.

'They could have come back to clean up the crime scene and got in through the skylight while police were outside.

'Of course, if MI6 were involved in his death that is one explanation for how they managed to get his phone.'

Anthony O'Toole, a barrister representing the family, has suggested that Gareth could have been killed by someone who specialises in 'the dark arts of the secret services.'

Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox said the theory that Mr Williams was killed by a spy was 'legitimate line of inquiry'.

She has questioned the motives of those who leaked details about Mr Williams's private life, including his visits to bondage websites. His family say the visits could have been work-related.

Police wasted time on false leads generated by the leaks. Reports that Mr Williams went to gay bars in the Vauxhall area of London, and visited websites on sadomasochism and claustrophilia – the sexual pleasure of confined spaces – proved to be false.

Dr Wilcox said Mr Williams was not a transvestite and that his collection of £20,000 of unworn women's clothes were probably gifts for friends.

She said the cause of death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated' and dismissed claims that Mr Williams had entered the sports bag seeking sexual gratification.

The coroner said: 'I wonder what the motive was for the release of this material to the media. I wonder whether this was an attempt by a third party to intimate a sexual motive.'

Daily Star : COPS ‘WILL SOLVE’ SPY IN BAG DEATH

COPS ‘WILL SOLVE’ SPY IN BAG DEATH

May 6, 2012

POLICE have vowed to solve the mystery surrounding the death of the “spy in the bag” amid claims of a Secret Service cover-up.

Detectives are convinced MI6 spies are not telling all they know about Gareth Williams, 31, who was found naked in a padlocked holdall two years ago.

Scotland Yard’s Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire has the backing of Britain’s top cop, Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe, to force them to come clean.

They have even threatened to drag in Foreign Secretary William Hague, who is overseer of MI6.

Spooks believe Mr Williams was either killed by a Russian or Chinese spy trying to turn him into a double agent, or that he died during a bizarre sex game that was part of his personal life that failed to show up in vigorous vetting.

A police insider said: “Scotland Yard will not give this up without a fight.”

Daily Mail : Scotland Yard investigates transvestite smear against spy Gareth, but no disciplinary action will be taken

Scotland Yard investigates transvestite smear against spy Gareth, but no disciplinary action will be taken

May 6, 2012

Detectives have investigated allegations that police smeared MI6 spy Gareth Williams – but have ruled out taking disciplinary action against any officer.

Scotland Yard's internal investigation unit examined claims that officers leaked information which led to false media reports that Gareth Williams was a transvestite who was the victim of a sex game that went wrong.

The leaks shifted attention from the spy's work with MI6 and GCHQ, the Government's secret listening station, to his private life.

Last night, the Met confirmed its team had ruled out disciplining any officer over the leaks.

In 2010, Mr Williams's family complained to officers they were learning more about the investigation from newspaper reports rather than from police briefings.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, who is leading the investigation into Mr Williams's death, told his inquest last week that the leaks diverted resources from genuine lines of inquiry.

The spy's body was found on August 23, 2010, locked inside a holdall which was placed in the bath at his home in Pimlico, Central London. The victim had last been seen by his colleagues ten days earlier.

Last week, coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox questioned the motives of those who leaked details about Mr Williams's private life, including his visits to bondage websites. His family say the visits could have been work-related.

Dr Wilcox said Mr Williams was not a transvestite and that his collection of £20,000 of unworn women's clothes were probably gifts for friends.

She also dismissed claims that Mr Williams had entered the sports bag seeking sexual gratification.

The coroner said: 'I wonder what the motive was for the release of this material to the media. I wonder whether this was an attempt by a third party to intimate a sexual motive.'

Scotland Yard's internal investigations unit was asked to look at the leaks after concerns were expressed by Det Chief Insp Sebire.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'Concerns were raised that information relating to the investigation had been placed in the public domain.

The force initiated an exercise to assess the concerns. A decision was taken not to proceed further.'

Police wasted time on false leads generated by the leaks. Reports that Mr Williams went to gay bars in the Vauxhall area of London, and visited websites on sadomasochism and claustrophilia – the sexual pleasure of confined spaces – proved to be false.

Det Chief Insp Sebire told the inquest that she had seen at first-hand the
distress the leaks had caused the Williams family, but insisted: 'They did not come from my team.'

A senior police source said that suspicions surrounding the source of the leaks initially centred on counter-terrorism police officers and MI6.

Last night a Whitehall spokesman denied MI6 was responsible for the smears but declined to say whether the Service was also investigating the claims.

A memo released to the inquest revealed that senior officials at GCHQ, where Mr Williams spent most of his career, were concerned about the leaks.

Last night, a GCHQ spokesman declined to comment on the memo or any investigation into the leaks.

MI6 and GCHQ were criticised by the coroner for waiting more than a week before raising the alarm about Mr Williams's absence.

Dr Wilcox also hit out at counter-terrorism officers who liaised with MI6 and GCHQ, and police officers investigating the spy's death.

She said evidence that could have helped the inquiry was only passed to detectives once the inquest was in its second week.

Last week it was revealed that police are planning to take DNA samples from up to 50 spies.

Dr Wilcox said the possibility that another spy was involved in Mr Williams's death was a 'legitimate line of inquiry'.

At the end of the inquest, Mr Williams's family criticised SO15, the Met's counter-terrorism branch, for the 'total inadequacies' of its investigation into MI6.

The family said: 'Our grief is exacerbated by the failure of MI6 to make even the most basic inquiries as to Gareth's whereabouts and welfare.

'We are also extremely disappointed at the reluctance and failure of MI6 to make available relevant information.'

NOLA : Naked spy died at hands of mystery killer, British coroner says

Naked spy died at hands of mystery killer, British coroner says

The Associated Press | May 5, 2012

LONDON -- Even after a coroner's verdict, it remains a mystery: A naked spy found dead in a locked bag, lurid details of a kinky sex life and allegations that someone in Britain's spy agencies may have been involved in his death.

A British coroner ruled Wednesday that another person was likely involved in Gareth Williams' death -- a finding that puts more pressure on police to uncover the cyberwarfare expert's killer and continue to investigate possibilities that include whether he could have died in a sex game gone awry or in a more sinister scenario that involved his counterterrorism work.

In Britain, coroners are asked to investigate unexplained deaths, and their findings can often carry weight as police investigations proceed.

Although Coroner Fiona Wilcox said it was unlikely that the death of Williams, 31, will ever be "satisfactorily explained," she said the spy was likely killed either by suffocation or poisoning in a "criminally meditated act." She also said it was possible that someone from one of Britain's spy agencies was involved.

Williams, described as an introverted math genius, worked for Britain's secret eavesdropping service GCHQ. But he was attached to the MI6 foreign spy agency when his remains were found in the bathtub at his London apartment on Aug. 16, 2010, just a few days after returning from a trip to the United States.

Forensic experts found about 20,000 thousand pounds, or $32,000, worth of luxury women's clothing, shoes and wigs in his apartment. Police also discovered that he had visited bondage and sadomasochism websites, including some related to claustrophilia -- a desire for confinement in enclosed spaces.

William's landlord testified during the coroner's hearing that she once found him handcuffed to his bed. She said he had appeared embarrassed after asking for help.

Still, Wilcox said there was no immediate evidence of a sexual encounter gone wrong, of suicidal intent, or that Williams' death was linked to a supposed interest in bondage. She said, however, that tales about his sex life could have been fueled in an attempt to "manipulate the evidence."

In the past, spy recruits were often cautioned that their sex lives could make them vulnerable to blackmail.

The case has frustrated Scotland Yard detectives who have been investigating the case for 21 months now and say that the secrecy surrounding Williams' job has thwarted their efforts.

"Obviously a lot of information has come out through the course of this inquest which we have not been party to," lead detective Jackie Sebire said.

But Wilcox also criticized the police detectives.

Time and resources were wasted, she said, when forensic teams investigating a DNA sample taken from Williams's hand later turned out to belong to one of the forensic scientists. She also questioned the handling of William's iPhone, which contained deleted images of him naked in a pair of boots.

Detective Superintendent Michael Broster, who was the police liason with MI6, said he had seized it from the spy's workplace and kept it until the next day when he gave it to another officer.

"I find this is either not what occurred ... or it demonstrates disregard for the rules governing continuity of evidence," Wilcox said.

Wilcox also criticized officers who interviewed Williams' colleagues without taking any formal statements.

"I find that this did affect the quality of evidence that was heard before this court," she said.

Still, the coroner said she had seen no evidence to indicate his death was linked to his work.

When the case emerged, some had speculated that he could have been the target of Russian criminal gangs or an al-Qaida extremist. Other media reports had said there had been a break-in at the property where he lived -- a building sometimes used by MI6 to house its agents.

Wilcox said while there wasn't evidence to support a specific verdict of unlawful killing -- which would need a high burden of proof -- it was her opinion that the spy was probably unlawfully killed.

She said while it appeared unlikely, speculation that British intelligence agencies may have had a role in the death continued to be a "legitimate line of inquiry."

MI6 waited a week to investigate why Williams hadn't shown up for work -- a delay that made it difficult for Williams' family to identify his badly decomposed body.

John Sawers, the head of MI6, said in a statement following the corner's verdict that he apologized "unreservedly" to the Williams family for the spy agency's failure.

During the coroner's hearing, MI6 accepted that Williams disliked the agency's boozy culture of post-work drinking and tedious bureaucracy, and had requested to return to his job at GCHQ.

One MI6 officer claimed that Williams hadn't been reported as missing because colleagues assumed he was preparing for his return to the southern England headquarters of the eavesdropping service.

Wilcox said it appeared unlikely that Williams could have climbed inside the duffel bag and locked it himself. Two different specialists attempted to recreate the feat without success. Williams was discovered in the fetal position inside the bag with two keys to the bag's padlock underneath his buttocks.

Pathologists told the inquest that poisoning or asphyxiation may have killed Williams, but said his cadaver was too badly decomposed to be certain.

Williams' family, who have been left distraught by parts of the inquest, did not speak outside court but offered a statement.

The family, from Wales, described Williams as a "special and adored son and brother" and said they "cannot describe the depth of the sorrow his absence leaves in our lives."

The police investigation is ongoing.

By Paisley Dodds, Associated Press
David Stringer contributed to this report.

Telegraph : Could mystery fingerprints provide clue in dead spy case?

Could mystery fingerprints provide clue in dead spy case?

Police are still to identify up to 20 sets of fingerprints found in the flat of dead MI6 spy Gareth Williams, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

By Tom Whitehead, Security Editor | May 5, 2012

Some of the potential prints are little more than marks or “smudges” but officers hope they could still hold the key to the maths prodigy’s death.

Forensic officers are still examining them along with traces of DNA found on a towel in the kitchen.

It came as the head of the Met’s homicide squad said he believed the bizarre death could still be solved despite few clues after a two-year investigation.

Officers are preparing to return to MI6 to interview colleagues of Mr Williams and take DNA as part of a review of the case.

It followed criticism by a coroner this week over aspects of the investigation and the way some evidence was handled.

Mr Williams’ naked decomposing body was discovered in a padlocked sports bag in the bath of his Pimlico home in London in August 2010.

It had been there for a week without anyone raising concerns that the 31-year-old, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, had gone missing.

At the end of an eight day inquest on Wednesday, coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox said that “on the balance of probabilities” Mr Williams was “unlawfully killed” and likely to have been “criminally mediated” by a mystery third party.

A lawyer for the family has previously suggested someone expert in the “dark arts” of the secret service was linked to the death.

Anthony O’Toole also hinted that foreign forces may have been aware the flat was being used to house MI6 officers and targeted it rather than a specific agenda against Mr Williams.

During the inquest, DCI Jackie Sebire, who is leading the investigation, said more than 300 fingerprints were found around the flat.

The majority of those have been accounted for but police sources revealed around 20 are still unresolved.

Some may prove to be too weak to be of use while others may still turn out to be entirely innocent, such as from a workman.

However, experts are working hard to resolve them in the hope they may throw up a mystery visitor to the flat.

Faint traces of the DNA of at least two other people were found on the bag containing Mr Williams but forensic officers fear they are too weak to ever be of use.

There is more hope surrounding DNA tests on a towel found in the kitchen which are due to be concluded within the next few weeks.

Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell, head of the Met's homicide squad, said of the riddle: “I think it can be resolved and DCI Sebire has my full support.

“We will make every effort to do that, will review the investigation and follow up lines.”

The Daily Telegraph disclosed yesterday that MI6 fear Scotland Yard is trying to make it a scapegoat for failings in the investigation.

Tensions are growing between the intelligence services and police over a possible blame game following criticism by the coroner.

Dr Wilcox criticised the delays in spotting Mr Williams was missing and apparent failures in the handling of potential evidence.

The inquest heard how nine memory sticks that may have belonged to the codebreaker and a bag similar to the one he was found dead in were discovered his office but never handed over to the Met team that investigated his death for almost two years.

A senior Whitehall source said there was concern within the intelligence service that the police were using it as a “scapegoat” to mask their own failings in solving the mystery.

Express : What Does MI6 Have To Say About The Spy In The Bag?

WHAT DOES MI6 HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THE SPY IN THE BAG?

By James Gillespie | May 5, 2012

THE bizarre case of Gareth Williams has thrown the spotlight on an intelligence service whose shadowy work leads some critics to ask whether it has become a law to itself.

There is an address in South London where even the police can’t go. Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, the officer leading the investigation into the baffling death of MI6 agent Gareth Williams – the so-called “Spy in the Bag” case – must have wished her powers extended to 85 Vauxhall Cross. But they don’t.

That address is the home of MI6 and although Sebire is a highly-experienced murder detective she doesn’t have security clearance to even enter the building much less question its inhabitants.

Instead her investigation depended on the mediation of Detective Superintendent Michael Broster of SO15, the counter-terrorism branch, which works closely with the intelligence services.

Only in the final stages of the inquest into Williams’s death this week did it emerge that no verbatim notes were taken of interviews with his MI6 colleagues and that a black holdall and nine memory sticks had been found at his desk but not handed over to the investigating officers.

Now 50 MI6 staff are facing DNA tests after the coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox, in a narrative verdict, ruled that it was likely Williams was “unlawfully killed”. Investigators are understood to believe that a colleague either from MI6 or the Government’s secret listening post at GCHQ was in the Pimlico flat when Williams died.

For his family – sister Ceri and parents Ian and Ellen – the inquest has raised as many questions as it has answered. And the most disturbing question of all is: does MI6 think it’s above the law?

The family has accused the intelligence service of withholding vital clues and failing to make “basic inquiries” until a week after Williams disappeared. “We are also extremely disappointed over the reluctance and failure of MI6 to make available relevant information,” they added.

Dr Wilcox echoed those concerns when she said that the forgetfulness of some employees at MI6, where Williams was on secondment from GCHQ, “stretched probability” and she refused to rule out the possibility that someone from the world of intelligence was involved.

From the moment the 31-year-old’s body was discovered in a North Face bag in the bath of his flat the response of MI6 has been puzzling. It took staff seven days even to report Williams – a conscientious time-keeper – missing then they appeared keen for police to be first into the apartment that MI6 has used for many years as temporary accommodation for employees.

The flat’s heating had been turned up high, despite the warmth of August, speeding up the decomposition of the body. The placing of the bag containing Williams into the bath prevented the giveaway leakage of fluids through the floor.

There were suggestions that the flat had been “swept” by someone who was forensically aware, to remove as many clues as possible.

Dr Wilcox said there was no evidence to suggest MI6 was involved in the death but “it is still a legitimate line of inquiry” and she added that “many agencies fell short” in the aftermath.

Sir John Sawers, MI6 chief, has apologised “unreservedly”, saying that lessons had been learned. But have they?

The problem may be that deep within MI6, in its culture and attitudes, lies a belief that the law is for other people.

The very nature of its work (MI6 deals with foreign intelligence, MI5 with domestic) means it is often on the boundaries of legality. The service is already under investigation for its part in sending Libyan dissidents into the hands of Muammar Gaddafi’s secret police.

Conservative MP Andrew Tyne, chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, this week called on Foreign Secretary William Hague to investigate whether MI6 officers had briefed journalists over the Libyan case – in breach of the Official Secrets Act.

The 1994 Intelligence Services Act allows MI6 officers to carry out acts abroad that if done in Britain would be in breach of criminal law. It would be hardly surprising if that attitude spreads to their staff at home.

Michael Smith, author of SIX: The Real James Bonds, says: “MI6 would recoil at any suggestion that it sees itself as above the law but the inherent secrecy of organisations like MI6 does tend to make them think that keeping everything they do secret, even the slightest thing, is so important that it transcends everything else.

“We’ve definitely seen that here, which is why the coroner and some police officers are so angry, justifiably so.”

But who are the people who spend their days working in the modernistic building on the banks of the Thames at 85 Vauxhall Cross?

There are about 2,500 people working for MI6 of whom about half are support staff.

The others are divided into two types: Intelligence Branch (IB) officers and General Service officers.

General Service officers asses reports.

It is the IB officers who are the real James Bonds. They train in the "killing houses" of the SAS and SBS at Hereford and Poole and have their own firing range at the MI6 training school at Fort Monckton on the Solent.

Within their shadowy world there are as many tensions and disagreements as in any workplace but these are hidden. In the Williams case a senior MI6 officer identified as F blamed his subordinate G for a "breakdown in communications" but G was not disciplined and no one will ever know who they are.

But Williams was a computer expert on secondment from GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. What sort of people work there?

“Geeks,” said one who knows GCHQ staff but did not want to be identified. “They are brilliant in languages, maths or computers but they tend to be the sort of people who don’t mix easily. At university they are always the top ones in their class but they’re loners. A bit awkward.”

That description certainly fits Williams. He was a fitness fanatic who loved competitive cycling but also had a £20,000 collection of women’s clothing in his flat. When it came to the inquest, friends were few and far between.

HOWEVER those who did know him believe the picture painted during the inquiry was misleading. Some have claimed the clothes were gifts for female friends and talk of him visiting claustrophilia websites turned out to be based on four visits in two years. Hardly evidence of a dangerous obsession, as Dr Wilcox pointed out.

Perhaps the truth about what happened to Williams has fallen victim to MI6’s rather ambivalent attitude to the law.

“The secret world lives in a bubble,” says Smith. “It very often seeks to keep secret even things that are freely available on the internet.”

Another intelligence services expert, author Michael Burleigh, says: “After imagining that it could outmanoeuvre Plod, meaning highly-competent detectives, MI6 needs to think about how it lost track of its ‘vital’ employee – for tracking people is what it allegedly does on a global stage.

“It needs also to think about how it can allay the understandable distress of the Williams family while helping DCI Sebire, who has every right to feel short-changed.”

By protecting its right to secrecy every step of the way in the case of Gareth Williams, MI6 may actually be doing nothing more than what it does best: keeping secrets. What it does not appear to have done is to have helped significantly in finding out the truth of what happened in that Pimlico flat.

And MI6 seems to have shown scant regard for the others involved, not least Williams’s sister and his parents.

Because MI6 appears to think of itself as being above the law it hasn’t convinced anyone that it did the right thing.

It has just made itself look guilty.

Daily Record : Intelligence expert Crispin Black on why sex games feature in so many spy deaths

Intelligence expert Crispin Black on why sex games feature in so many spy deaths

By Crispin Black | former government intelligence adviser | May 5, 2012

SITTING at the Gareth Williams inquest this week, listening to the more lurid details of the case, it occurred to me the death of spooks in bizarre circumstances involving sex games or women’s clothing is hardly an unusual event.

Disposing of an enemy and making it look like a perverted fantasy gone wrong is in the training manuals of every spy agency from MI6 to Mossad.

Codebreaker Gareth, from Anglesey, north Wales, was found dead in a locked bag, in a flat full of women’s clothing and wigs and with his internet browsing history conveniently featuring bondage sites, sparking a flurry of allegations which horrified his parents.

But the fact the 31-year-old’s death scene was organised in such a way as to suggest a sex game gone wrong should make us more suspicious, not less.

The sex game cover is a very useful mechanism in a murder. Not only does it provide a disguise for the actual means and method of death, it trashes the reputation of the victim and blunts the energy of any subsequent investigation.

And it appears to explain the astonishing number of spies, and other people who step into their murky world, who turn up dead in circumstances similar to Gareth.

Take GCHQ personnel for instance, those that work at the vast electronic doughnut in Cheltenham that is responsible for intercepting and decoding secret electronic traffic of interest to Her Majesty’s Government. And Gareth’s ultimate employer.

In 1983, 25-year-old Stephen Drinkwater, who worked as a clerk at GCHQ, was found dead at his home with a plastic bag over his head. In 1997 another worker, Nicholas Husband, 46, was found dead at home dressed in a bra and panties – with a plastic bag over his head.

Two years later, Kevin Allen, 31, a language expert at GCHQ, was found dead in his bed with a plastic bag over his head and a dust mask over his mouth. One wonders what the Gloucestershire Constabulary make of it all.

To be fair, the kind of higher mathematical ability that many GCHQ codebreakers have is rare and it sometimes comes with some personal eccentricities attached.

Alan Turing, the Cambridge academic and founder of modern computer science who became the greatest of the wartime Bletchley Park codebreakers was a distinctly odd fish – a loner with sexual hang-ups who seemed to spend most of his waking hours dreaming of obscure mathematical theorems.

The point was amusingly made in 60s film The Italian Job in which Charlie Croker, played by Michael Caine, recruits computer genius Professor Simon Peach – Benny Hill – to pull off a daring bullion robbery.

But the whole scheme nearly comes unstuck as Prof Peach is unable to control his powerful urges towards large women. MI6, who recruit a more worldly-wise type than the boffins of GCHQ, have not been immune.

In 1994 ex-MI6 man turned journalist James Rusbridger, 65, was found hanged at his house in Cornwall – in a green chemical protection suit including rubber gloves, gas mask and black plastic mackintosh. Bondage pictures completed the tableau.

And of course, according to the pathologist, it turned out he probably did it himself as part of a sex game.

The same year Stephen Milligan, the Tory MP for Eastleigh, was found dead with electrical flex tied round his neck, a black bin liner over his head and wearing stockings and suspenders.

The 45-year-old was also tied to a chair and had a satsuma stuffed into his mouth.

His boss at the time, then junior defence minister Jonathan Aitken, has since denied suggestions Milligan had links to MI6.

Even if you are not a spook you need to be careful. In 1990, ex-RAF helicopter pilot and editor of Defence Helicopter World Jonathan Moyle, 28, was found hanged in the wardrobe of his hotel in Chile with a pillow case over his head.

At the time his demise was widely thought to be an auto-erotic accident. He was in fact almost certainly murdered after uncovering links between Chilean arms dealers and Saddam Hussein.

The last person to give evidence at the Gareth Williams inquest was Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire – the senior investigating officer in the case.

She stated confidently that she was sure she and her team would be able to unlock the mystery in the end. But she also felt that this, her final appearance in court, was an appropriate time to remind the assembled audience of Williams’s internet browsing habits.

The last website he accessed probably just a few hours before his death was connected to cycling – a photo of him competing in a cross-country cycling race has been seen frequently in the national newspapers.

But then she went on to deal with the browsing information that had been made much of in the media over the last 20 months. Williams had accessed bondage websites on four days over a two-year period.

He had never accessed so-called “claustrophilia” sites which cater for people who get a thrill out of being confined in small spaces.

There we have it – the view of the woman in charge of the probe. Williams may have had a passing interest in bondage but no more than that. Even this passing interest may have a perfectly innocent explanation.

All MI6 officers get extensive training before they are allowed out on to the streets. Much of this takes place at Fort Monckton near Gosport in Hampshire – a Napoleonic era fortress surrounded by barbed wire and accessible only by a drawbridge.

It includes instruction in basic entry and exit procedures – buildings and cars mainly. If you ever get locked out of your flat and know a friendly spook from school or university give them a ring.

They should be able to get you back inside and could save you a fortune on locksmith’s fees. The instruction also includes some counter-surveillance techniques – how to make sure you are not followed.

And instruction on what to do if you fall into the wrong hands – resistance to interrogation and crucially, what to do if you are restrained – tied or chained up.

It is possible Williams had some of this training and it might well account for the episode when he was discovered tied up in his room by his landlady.

That the sex game angle was a simple smear is a view certainly not ruled out by the Westminster coroner who said, “it is still a legitimate line of inquiry” Gareth died at the hands of MI6.

In her narrative verdict, Dr Fiona Wilcox said: “I am sure a third party placed the bag into the bath and on the balance of probabilities locked the bag.

The cause of death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated. I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities Gareth was killed unlawfully.”

I was impressed by Dr Wilcox. She had good judgment and wisdom as can be seen from her verdict in the case. She played down the bondage question and the interest in female fashion – Williams had an expensive collection of women’s clothing nearly all of it unworn and most of it not in his size.

She seemed to accept the view of Williams’s sister that these were a store of presents for his female acquaintances. Dr Wilcox pretty much dismissed the idea of any sexual component in his death.

Sadly that is the aspect many people will remember. Well, these kinky games with yourself or other people go wrong – what can you expect – becomes the prevailing attitude.

Occasionally the dark arts of postmortem reputation trashing are employed in a good cause and based on hard facts rather than a set-up.

The strange and squalid habits of Osama bin Laden before his death have been used to great effect by the US to make him a laughing stock.

Crispin Black’s espionage thriller The Falklands Intercept is published by Gibson Square on June 19.

Daily Mail : MI6 'body-in-bag' spy learned to pick locks at Las Vegas escapology convention weeks before he died after being sent there to mix with criminals

MI6 'body-in-bag' spy learned to pick locks at Las Vegas escapology convention weeks before he died after being sent there to mix with criminals

By Chris Greenwood | May 4, 2012

Spy Gareth Williams may have studied lock-picking and escapology weeks before his naked corpse was found in a padlocked bag.

It has emerged that MI6 sent the 31-year-old to mingle with hackers, fraudsters and other criminals at the Def Con conference in Las Vegas.

It included classes on opening padlocks without keys, escaping from handcuffs, tampering with objects without leaving traces and confounding drug tests.

The event is a magnet for spies from agencies across the world.

Delegates are encouraged to ‘out’ government agents and undercover police officers, raising the possibility that the highly sensitive nature of Mr Williams’s job was exposed.

Earlier this week, the inquest into Mr Williams’s death was told he travelled to Las Vegas for the well-respected Black Hat hackers convention.

The event, which costs more than £1,000 to attend, features high-profile guest speakers and lavish hospitality funded by technology firms.

Less was made of the fact that Mr Williams stayed in the US to attend Def Con at the Riviera Hotel and Casino.

Its unusual conference pass – a working circuit board – was discovered in Mr Williams’s Alderney Street flat.

Two Scotland Yard detectives have already retraced Mr Williams’s steps in Las Vegas and during a week-long driving holiday that followed.

They linked an orange fancy-dress wig discovered at his flat to a shop there, where a member of staff remembered selling it to him.

However, they are unlikely to have discovered what he did during the secretive second conference, which he attended with a team of colleagues.

A British security expert told the Daily Mail he met GCHQ staff at Def Con, but said Mr Williams was not among them.

‘We met for a chat and coffee,’ he said. ‘They were just one of several intelligence agencies that I do business with. I did not see [Mr Williams] and I would remember his face.'

Mr Williams flew back to London on August 11, 2010, but never returned to MI6’s headquarters at Vauxhall Cross.

His family suspect that an agent of the ‘dark arts’ was involved in his murder, in the early hours of August 16.

Detectives have been instructed not to rule out the ‘legitimate line of inquiry’ that an MI6 colleague or foreign agent was responsible.

Delegates queue for hours to pay £60 admission for Def Con, which was founded as an alternative to the main Black Hat conference. Few provide their real names.

In 2010, one of Def Con’s main stands included a huge range of padlocks that attendees were invited to pick.

Elsewhere, three escapology experts gave an hour-long presentation demonstrating how to release handcuffs using slim pieces of metal and skeleton keys.

Delegates could also win a prize by working around supposedly tamper-proof stickers, metal clasps and plastic ties with a range of tools and chemicals without leaving a trace.

Most seminars and talks focused on computer hacking, including password cracking, eavesdropping on phone conversations and seizing control of wi-fi networks.

In one demonstration, a well-known hacker showed that he could make a cash machine spew out notes.

Chester Wisniewski, of computer security firm Sophos, said Def Con has a ‘free-wheeling spirit’ and an ‘anything goes environment’.

He added: ‘There are probably criminals there – anyone from a Russian mafia guy, a child pornographer to God knows who else.

‘It’s a well-known fact that lots of spies and Government agents go.

There is even a game called “spot the Fed”.

If you call them out and they admit to being from an agency the person gets a T-shirt.’

Mr Williams attended the same conference two years earlier, according to one of his colleagues at GCHQ who gave evidence at the inquest.

It was also revealed that Mr Williams ran up a substantial credit card bill at the two 2010 conferences, sending his account into the red.

Wales Online : MI6 spy Gareth Williams killed by foreign agents, claims security expert

MI6 spy Gareth Williams killed by foreign agents, claims security expert

Darren Devine | May 4, 2012

Welsh spy Gareth Williams was murdered by a foreign power because his appetite for bizarre sex games made him a soft target for blackmailers, a security expert claims.

Professor Anthony Glees believes Mr Williams was probably killed after either passing on or refusing to divulge secrets to foreign spies.

An inquest into his death heard how he once had to be rescued by his landlady after tying himself to a bed in an incident she believed was “sexual”.

Prof Glees, head of the Buckingham University Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, said: “It was clear that there was a connection between his private life and the work he was doing being used to effectively blackmail him.

“In other words, it was always possible that the bizarre and unusual sexual interests he was developing had been communicated to a hostile intelligence service.

“It was entirely unintentional, but they got to know of it and encouraged him. He was killed either because he had not given them what they wanted or he had given them what they wanted and they wanted to make sure they left no tracks.”

Mr Williams was found padlocked inside a holdall in the bath at his London flat - coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox said it was highly unlikely he got in the bag alone.

Professor Glees has previously said he believes Iranian or Russian spies would have been most likely to target 31-year-old Mr Williams.

In her narrative verdict coroner Dr Wilcox said Mr Williams, from Valley, near Holyhead on Anglesey, was probably the victim of a “criminally mediated” unlawful killing in which poison may have been used.

Dr Wilcox also said it “remained a legitimate line of inquiry” that the secret services may have been involved in the death of the GCHQ code breaker.

But she said “there was no evidence to support” that Williams, who was on secondment to MI6, died at the hands of spies.

Prof Glees also said nine memory sticks found among Mr Williams’ personal possessions at his office in Vauxhall Cross, London, lend weight to the idea the spy was murdered.

He said: “You wouldn’t expect to get a memory stick out of MI6 or MI5 or GCHQ and Gareth must have known that.

“However to have those sticks was highly irregular and because he was clearly taking risks maybe he was thinking about taking the risk of taking stuff out of MI6.”

The failure of MI6 to hand over the memory sticks to the police was the subject of criticism by the coroner, who accused the security services of hampering the investigation.

MI6 were also criticised for waiting a week before raising the alarm over the spy’s disappearance.

But terrorism expert Michael Burleigh believes the explanation for Mr Williams’ death in August 2010 is more straightforward.

The author of Blood And Rage: A Cultural History Of Terrorism, believes the spy died after a sex game went wrong.

He said the lack of hand or footprints in Mr Williams’ bathroom suggests he got into the bag voluntarily.

Mr Burleigh said part of the game may have involved the others leaving the flat while Mr Williams tried to get out of the bag.

Scientists found traces of "at least" two unknown people in his upmarket London apartment despite evidence Mr Williams rarely invited people over.

The author, who believes Mr Williams was too junior a spook interest a foreign power, said: “I think it’s very likely to be sexual and I think the most plausible explanation, given that he didn’t leave prints on the bath, was that somebody was involved in whatever he was doing.

“I think whoever he was doing this with went away and probably thought he’s got a key in the bag. They went away and maybe panicked and came back and found him dead.

“I don’t believe he was killed and put in the bag because dead bodies are extremely heavy and inert and because of rigor mortis it’s virtually impossible to make them flexible.”

IOL : Cops turn to ‘spy-in-bag’ iPhone

Cops turn to ‘spy-in-bag’ iPhone

By CHRIS GREENWOOD | May 4, 2012

Scotland Yard was on Thursday preparing to overhaul the inquiry into the death of Gareth Williams as the spotlight fell on an iPhone belonging to the spy.

Police chiefs are considering replacing the officer who led the investigation from the moment the 31-year-old’s naked body was found in a bag.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire has been temporarily promoted and moved to an East London borough.

Her superiors will re-launch the case within days and could decide that a fresh pair of eyes would help to take advantage of leads thrown up by the explosive inquest into his death.

One of the main focuses of their inquiry is an iPhone found on a table in Mr Williams’s top-floor flat in Pimlico, central London.

The £500 device, one of four owned by the MI6 officer, had been restored to its factory settings, wiping it clean of almost all data, in the late evening of August 15, 2010, only hours before he died.

Doubt remains, however, about how much data is still on the phone and Mr Williams’s inquest heard that a trace of a bondage website visited in October 2009 was found on it.

The mystery deepened when the mobile phone operator told police it had not been used over the previous three months.

Despite this, investigators believe it may have somehow been used to contact whoever killed Mr Williams.

Simon Steggles, of Disklabs, which specialises in retrieving phone data for police, said it may still be possible to find clues on the iPhone.

He said: “A factory reset puts the iPhone into the same state as it would be when you first purchase it. If access to the user’s computer is available, it may be possible to recover data from a back-up.”

Police are considering whether a short video of Mr Williams dancing while wearing nothing but a pair of women’s boots may have been sent to a third-party via the phone.

Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox found Mr Williams was probably unlawfully killed, getting into the bag alive but then dying from suffocation or a mystery poison.

She highlighted how police missed potentially vital clues by failing to recover his possessions from his workplace, including nine computer memory sticks.

Up to 50 MI6 and GCHQ officers now face having DNA samples taken and being interviewed by counter terrorism detectives. Dr Wilcox refused to rule out that Mr Williams was killed by someone at the intelligence agency, saying it remains a “legitimate line of inquiry”.

Murder squad detectives strongly suspect a member of the security services was in the victim’s flat on the night he died.

Detectives are also pinning their hopes on the results of forensic analysis of human traces recovered from a green hand towel.

But scientists at LGC Forensics have warned the results of low-copy testing, in which tiny traces of DNA are ‘grown’ until they can be identified, could take a further eight weeks.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said senior officers were giving “careful consideration” to any new “evidential opportunities”.

Daily Mail

Press TV : MI6 spy was unlawfully killed: British coroner

MI6 spy was unlawfully killed: British coroner

May 4, 2012

A British coroner has said the MI6 spy whose body was found at his government flat was probably “unlawfully killed”, admitting it is “unlikely” the circumstances surrounding his death “will ever be satisfactorily explained."

“The cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated," said British coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox in her two-hour narrative verdict at Westminster Coroner's Court.

“I am therefore satisfied that on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully," added Wilcox.

The naked and decomposing body of Gareth Williams, a spy for Britain’s secret eavesdropping service, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), was found in the bath at his government flat in south London in August 2010.

An inquest into Williams’ mysterious death opened on Monday 23 April. After seven days of inquest and also considering a 21-month police inquiry, Wilcox said most of the fundamental questions about how he had died remained unanswered.

Prior to the opening of the inquest on Monday, Williams’ family, friends, and neighbors said they feared he might be the victim of a “cover-up."

Williams’ family believes that a member of “some agency specializing in the dark arts of the secret services” had a role to play in his death.

Wilcox also said that it remained a "legitimate line of inquiry" that the secret services were involved in Williams’ death.

ISH/MA/HE

Daily Post : Spies face DNA tests in Gareth Williams probe

Spies face DNA tests in Gareth Williams probe

by Owen R Hughes, DPW West | May 4, 2012

POLICE investigating the death of Anglesey codebreaker Gareth Williams will take DNA samples from members of the secret services in a bid to find out how he died.

MI6 came under fire as a coroner said she was sure a third party locked the maths wizard inside the red holdall in which his body was found in his bathtub at his London flat in August 2010.

Dr Fiona Wilcox said he was probably killed and it “remained a legitimate line of inquiry” that the secret services may have been involved in the death.

A source at the Metropolitan police confirmed that the collection of DNA samples was being widened as part of the continuing probe but could not confirm who was being targeted.

Despite the 21 month police investigation and eight day inquest into the death of Mr Williams, 31, of Valley, his family are no closer to knowing how he died.

The inquest exposed serious errors in the probe, which was also initially hampered by the week long delay in the MI6 reporting that Mr Williams had not attended work.

Mr Williams’s relatives attacked failures by secret services and police after the coroner said “many agencies fell short” in their investigation of the death riddle.

It is now hoped that a re-focusing of the investigation and new evidence that emerged at the inquest can help shed more light on the mysterious case.

Family friend Colin Torr, from Valley, said: “It would have been nice for the family to have had some kind of closure but there were no firm conclusions from the inquest.

“There have clearly been errors made in the investigation and with MI6 involved I don’t know if we will ever find the truth.

“The family are held in great respect in the village and people continue to rally around them.”

Mr Williams would have been unlikely to invite a third party who was not a family member into his home, Dr Wilcox observed, adding: “If a third party was present at the time of his death, in my view that third party would have to have been someone he knew or someone who was there without an invitation.”

Criticising the inquiry, she warned it was unlikely the mystery would “ever be satisfactorily explained”.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, who is leading the investigation, said the inquest had raised “several new lines of inquiry and the investigation will now refocus and actively pursue all the evidence heard and all the new lines of inquiry”.

West End Extra : Coroner records 'unnatural death' verdict, but will we ever know what really happened to the spy found in a holdall?

Coroner records 'unnatural death' verdict, but will we ever know what really happened to the spy found in a holdall?

by JOSH LOEB | May 4, 2012

THE building that hosted the inquest into the death of Gareth Williams is located just steps from Sherlock Holmes’s fictional home in Baker Street.

But perhaps even someone of the calibre of Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective might lack the ability to unravel what has already become known as “The Alderney Street Mystery”.

An inquest, held inside the annexe of the creaking Marylebone Council House building in Marylebone Road, concluded this week after seven days of evidence and a blizzard of media coverage.

It has almost certainly been the most complex Westminster coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox has heard since taking up the post a year ago, and it is hard to imagine a more haunting case.

Mr Williams, 31, a prodigious agent for MI6, was found dead inside a padlocked holdall in a bath in an en suite bathroom at his Pimlico flat on August 23, 2010.

He was naked and was lying on his back curled up in a partial foetal position.

There were no signs of a break-in or struggle at the property.

The flat was eerily tidy and neither Mr Williams’s fingerprints nor his footprints were evident on the bathroom tiles or sides of the bath.

No forensic traces have yet been pinpointed from which any third party can be identified, but experts are still analysing mystery DNA found on the holdall in the hope this could yield a breakthrough.

In her summing up on Wednesday, Dr Wilcox ruled out the possibility that Mr Williams could have zipped himself into the holdall and locked it, still less accomplished this within the even more restricted confines of the bath.

She said: “I am satisfied so that I’m sure that a third party lifted the bag into the bath and, on the balance of probabilities, locked the bag."

"The cause of his [Mr Williams’s] death is unnatural and is likely to be criminally motivated.”

She said it was probable that Mr Williams had died inside the holdall, adding that it was logical to assume this had been placed in the bath to allow the products of decomposition to drain away.

The door of the bathroom had been shut, preventing the smell from spreading.

Mr Williams worked at MI6’s headquarters in Vauxhall, where he was on a secondment from the GCHQ listening station in Cheltenham.

Described as a scrupulous risk assessor, he only ever let vetted people into his flat.

He was last seen alive on Sunday August 15, 2010, and an analysis of one of his iPhones showed it had been reset to factory settings, essentially wiped clean of data, on that date.

Dr Wilcox speculated that “this may have been the phone by which some third party had made some arrangement to meet with Gareth”.

On August 16 Mr Williams failed to appear for work.

Incredibly, he was not reported missing until August 23.

The heating in his flat was on despite the fact that it was a sweltering August, and this caused the corpse to decompose faster than it otherwise would have done.

On the fourth day of evidence, Anthony O’Toole, the lawyer for the Williams family, said MI6’s delay in raising the alarm over the disappear­ance had produced “horrendous results”.

“Because of the decomposition of the body, any forensic evidence that could have been derived from it has disappeared, so the police investigation has in effect been defeated,” he said.

Dr Wilcox, who recorded a narrative verdict of “unnatural death”, criticised MI6 for this, prompting an apology from the organisation’s chief Sir John Sawers, who promised lessons had been learned.

The court heard that SO15 counter-terrorism command had acted as a conduit between MI6 and DCI Jackie Sebire, the detective leading the case.

But they repeatedly failed to pass potentially vital information on to her.

DCI Sebire said the inquest had raised new lines of inquiry, and she appealed to anyone with any information to come forward, but Dr Wilcox said she believed it was unlikely Mr Williams’s death would ever be satisfactorily explained.

The Williams family have always said they believe “some agency specialising in the dark arts” either had a hand in Mr Williams’s death or cleaned up afterwards.

That impression looks set to remain in the minds of many people, particularly those who have borne witness to this gripping and almost unprecedented window into the cloak-and-dagger world of secret service spooks.

Wired : MI6 Codebreaker Attended U.S. Security Conference Before His Death

MI6 Codebreaker Attended U.S. Security Conference Before His Death

Kim Zetter | May 3, 2012

A top British codebreaker who died a mysterious death in his flat two years ago had just returned from a computer security conference in the United States before his death, according to information disclosed during an inquest this week.

The body of Gareth Williams, a codebreaker with Britain’s MI6 spy agency, was discovered stuffed into a sports bag in his bathtub on Aug. 23, 2010, though he’s believed to have been killed Aug. 15.

Williams had just returned to London on Aug. 11 after spending six weeks in the United States, where he attended the annual Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas as part of a contingent of British spies, according to witnesses who spoke at the inquest. He attended Black Hat in 2008 as well.

It’s believed Williams may have also attended Black Hat’s companion hacker conference, DefCon, which follows Black Hat and draws many of the same attendees. In 2010, Black Hat was held July 24 to 29, while DefCon ran from July 30 to Aug. 1.

Black Hat is one of the top security conferences in the world, targeting the professional security crowd, while DefCon is geared more specifically to hackers. Law enforcement agents, the military and undercover spies regularly attend both conferences — often undercover — to keep pace with the latest research and learn what hackers are up to. They also recruit hackers for professional work.

DefCon holds an annual spot-the-fed contest to out undercover agents as a good-natured sport. Attendees who spot a fed receive an “I spotted a Fed” T-shirt, while the outed agent gets a trophy T-shirt of his own to take back to his office, sporting the phrase “I was spotted at DefCon.”

Not everyone wants to be outed or plays by the conference ground rules for working undercover. Several years ago, undercover agents believed to be working for Israel’s Mossad spy agency were kicked out of the conference after registering as journalists and posing as a French film crew from Canal Plus.

It’s not known specifically why Williams attended Black Hat or if he and his colleagues attended incognito. A Black Hat organizer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Williams, who was 31 when he died, was found inside a North Face nylon sports bag in the bathtub of his apartment. His nude body was in the fetal position, with his arms folded across his chest. The bag was closed with a padlock, and two keys to the padlock were found underneath Williams’ body inside the bag.

His mobile phone and a number of SIM cards were laid out on a table nearby; the phone had been restored to its factory settings. There were no signs of forced entry to the apartment and no signs of a struggle.

Williams was described by those who knew him as a “math genius” who graduated from Bangor University at the age of 17 with a degree in mathematics. He’d begun his university studies while still in secondary school. In 2001 he joined Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain’s listening post, helping to break coded Taliban communications, among other things. He was considered a “world-class intelligence officer” and had won two awards for codebreaking, according to his boss at GCHQ.

In 2009, he was loaned out to MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service, for a three-year stint, but asked to be transferred back to GCHQ after a year. He was preparing to move back to his old job around the time he was killed.

Williams had worked in a four-man team as an expert codebreaker and shortly before his death had been in contact with two secret agents working in the field in the U.K., according to testimony at the inquest.

The Daily Mail quoted anonymous sources last year saying that Williams had been working on secret technology to track stolen money being laundered through Britain by Russian mafia. The technology was reportedly designed to allow MI6 agents to follow money from bank accounts in Russia to criminal gangs in Europe via internet and wire transfers.

He also worked on another secretive project to develop devices for stealing data from mobile phones and laptops using wireless technology.

“He was involved in a very sensitive project with the highest security clearance,” the anonymous source told the Daily Mail. “He was not an agent doing surveillance, but was very much part of the team, working on the technology side, devising stuff like software.”

The source indicated that Williams’ work to disrupt the Russian mafia could have put him at risk.

“Some of these powerful criminal networks have links with, and employ, former KGB agents who can track down people like Williams,” the source said.

Williams also had reportedly worked with the NSA and British intelligence to intercept e-mail messages that helped convict would-be bombers in the United Kingdom. He had made repeated visits to the United States to meet with the National Security Agency and worked closely with British and U.S. spy agencies to intercept and examine communications that passed between an al-Qaida official in Pakistan and three men who were convicted in 2009 of plotting to bomb transcontinental flights.

Investigators said during the inquest that there was no evidence Williams was killed as a result of the work he was doing, but they acknowledged that a full investigation had been thwarted by the spy agencies who employed Williams, raising suspicions that the agencies might have been involved in his death or at least know who was responsible for it.

Hours before he died, surveillance cameras captured Williams in London’s Knightsbridge neighborhood while he was shopping at the luxury department store Harrods. Williams was expected at work the next day, but never showed up. MI6 did not report him missing, however, until Aug. 23, at which point his body had decomposed, thwarting attempts to determine the precise cause of death.

The spy agencies also failed to hand over nine thumb drives found in Williams’ locker at work. The drives were released to investigators only this week. Other electronic equipment that Williams used at work was handed over to Scotland Yard investigators four days after Williams’ body was discovered, raising questions about whether they had been cleaned by the spy agencies first.

Family and friends testified that Williams was unhappy with his work environment at MI6 and felt he didn’t fit in with his colleagues. During the inquest, testimony revealed that the coder had conducted unauthorized searches of an MI6 database that could have put him at risk if he was discovered. Investigators said, however, that MI6 was apparently unaware that Williams had conducted the searches.

A coroner said at the inquest that while it appeared unlikely that British spy agencies played a role in the coder’s death, it was still a “legitimate line of inquiry” for the investigation.

Investigators found no fingerprints or other any other evidence indicating someone had been with Williams the night he died, or that anyone beyond his family had ever been in his apartment. Investigators said at the inquest that small traces of incomplete DNA had been found on the tiny padlock that had been used to closed the bag in which Williams’ body was stuffed. The only other DNA evidence found in the apartment that didn’t belong to Williams or his family was found on a green hand towel in the kitchen.

Authorities plan to take DNA evidence from 50 colleagues who worked with Williams at MI6 to determine if there is a match.

Daily Mail : So who did kill the spy? Spooks, sex and the vital questions that the inquest couldn't answer

So who did kill the spy? Spooks, sex and the vital questions that the inquest couldn't answer [scroll down]

May 2, 2012

Who put him in the holdall?

Some 400 attempts were made by expert witnesses to padlock themselves inside a North Face holdall identical to the one in which Mr Williams' body was found. Each attempt resulted in failure, so unless Mr Williams was able to pull off this 'amazing' feat, at least one still unidentified person was involved in his death.

The theory that he was placed in the bag while already dead or unconscious was challenged at the inquest by pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd. He said it would be 'extremely difficult' to place a 'floppy' dead body in a foetal position as neat as that in which the corpse was found.

Dr Shepherd did concede that the codebreaker could have been forced into the holdall at gunpoint or while sedated.

While tests continue on scratches found at the end of the bag where his head lay, there were no signs inside the bag of a violent struggle to get out. If Mr Williams was conscious when the bag was sealed he would have quickly passed out and died because of the build-up of carbon dioxide within. He could also have been poisoned.

Furthermore, if a naked Mr Williams had climbed into the holdall while it was in the bath, he would have left hand and footprints. That there were none found suggests that he was already in the bag before it was placed in the bath.

At least one unidentified person would seem to have been present in the bathroom between the time the bag was put in the bath and its discovery by police eight days later.

Yesterday the coroner said: 'In relation to the prints found within the bathroom, in my view what was more significant was what was not found rather than what was found.' She said she was 'sure that a third party moved the bag containing Gareth into the bath'.

Was his death linked to his private life?

That is the official MI6 verdict. While his family portrayed him as a very private man with conventional tastes, the picture that has emerged since his death suggests otherwise.

Police found evidence that Mr Williams looked at bondage websites and visited transvestite clubs and gay bars, though they could not identify any sexual partners. His friends insisted he was heterosexual but could not explain his behaviour.

Mr Williams had a £20,000 collection of women's clothing in his flat, including shoes his own size which had been worn and a long wig. His friends, who knew nothing of the collection, suggest Mr Williams meant to give them away as gifts.

But a video found on one of his phones showed Mr Williams 'gyrating' for the camera naked but for a pair of women's calf-length boots.

His landlady at a former home in Cheltenham had once found him tied to his bedposts wearing only his boxer shorts. She felt that the incident was of a sexual nature. This and his occasional visits to extreme websites coincide with his MI6 training.

There is no firm evidence that Mr Williams derived any kind of sexual pleasure from bondage or confinement, and the coroner raised the possibility that allegations about the spy's private vices were made by a third party to 'manipulate' the evidence. Had a false trail been laid and if so, why?

Did he die as a result of a sex game?

The coroner ruled out any link between Mr Williams' interest in bondage and his death. But suspicions remain. Traces of his semen were found on the floor of the bathroom in which his body was discovered and on his dressing gown.

Someone else's DNA is understood to have been found on a green hand towel in Mr Williams' kitchen, which might yield further clues, even a breakthrough, in coming weeks.

Did he die as a result of a sadomasochistic scenario which went wrong? Was the bag padlocked by a sexual partner who then fled the scene?

Why were the radiators on full blast?

Mr Williams died during August, when central heating would normally be switched off. The fact that it wasn't off in his top floor flat raises a suspicion that it is linked to his death, or at least an attempt to destroy evidence.

The higher temperature would have speeded up the decomposition of the body. Putrefaction would have been further hastened by the fact that the body was curled up inside a holdall.

The holdall also helped contain the tell-tale smell of decomposition. The bath would also have contained and eventually drained any fluids released as the body decayed.

If there was indeed a deliberate effort to speed up decomposition in order to hide the cause of death and delay discovery then it was entirely successful.

By the time pathologists were able to examine Mr Williams' corpse, the decomposition was so advanced they could only guess at cause of death.

Was his death linked to spying?

His family believe so, but we may never know.

MI6 obtained a Public Interest Immunity certificate which kept details of his work for them and GCHQ secret.

They claim Mr Williams was seen as at 'low risk' but he was a highly skilled and trained computer scientist who had recently met two informants and was ready to be deployed on an active mission.

One manager said he made a 'small number' of unauthorised searches on the MI6 database which could have left him open to blackmail.

His flat had been rented by spies since 2003 and he confirmed his sensitive occupation to at least two close friends.

When she reported him missing, GCHQ's human resources chief, told a police switchboard worker that Mr Williams had been 'just taken off an operation' and was unhappy.

The inquest was told this was not true and the coroner ruled her comment may have been 'misinformation' designed to spur police into action. These contradictions did nothing to increase confidence in the security services' account.

Why did MI6 take eight days to call the police?

MI6's behaviour throughout this whole affair has been puzzling and done little to discourage conspiracy theories about its direct involvement in Mr Williams' death.

The codebreaker was a meticulous time-keeper yet he was missing from work for a week before the security services alerted the police.

During that time only cursory attempts were made to contact him. His line manager – known at the inquest as MI6 Officer G – came in for particular criticism at the inquest.

The delay was crucial in the pathologists' subsequent inability to give a definite cause of death. Even after his bosses decided he was missing there was still a four-hour delay before raising the alarm.

Given his work as a spy, this seeming laxity is amazing. It is also puzzling that the security services apparently wanted the police to be the first people through the door of their own 'safe house', to hunt for a missing operative.

Did MI6 undermine the inquiry?

Anthony O'Toole, lawyer for the Williams family, asked an officer from the Met's SO15 counter-terrorism branch: 'If this wasn't the SIS and it was the Kray twins or someone else, you were investigating, you would have gone into far more detail, wouldn't you?'

As the inquest progressed it became clear that there was a disconnect between the anti-terrorist police officers who were security vetted to visit MI6 HQ and their colleagues on the outside investigating the death.

Officers from SO15 went to Vauxhall Cross and examined Mr Williams' locker and desk. There were nine memory sticks in the locker and a North Face holdall, similar to the death bag, under the desk, containing a number of personal items and work material.

Detective Constable Colin Hall, of the counter-terror branch, told the inquest he did not take the computer memory sticks because he was told by MI6 they contained material 'of a sensitive nature'. He said he was also told to leave the bag in situ.

In fact the investigative team learned of the suppressed evidence only during the inquest. They were also kept in the dark about MI6's examination of the dead man's 'electronic media'.

It seems the SO15 officers were serving the interests of the security services rather than those of the murder squad.

MI6 failed to provide formal statements to the inquest. This may well have been the fault of SO15 officers who did not press for anything more than anonymous summaries of informal interviews rather than sworn statements.

The coroner said this had affected the quality of evidence heard at inquest. The security services were also slow in handing over key other evidence.

The inquest heard that Mr Williams's GCHQ computer was not handed over until six days after his body was discovered and the MI6 one four days later.

Mr Williams also owned four iPhones. Experts are still trying to recover data from one of them. It was wiped on the last day he was seen alive.

Telephone company records suggested that it had never been used.

The MI6 headquarters where Gareth Williams worked at Vauxhall Cross, near Vauxhall Bridge, in south London

Why was there so little forensic evidence?

It wasn't only the bathroom that was suspiciously devoid of clues. Police found no unidentified fingerprints anywhere else in the death flat. All belonged to Mr Williams or his close family.

There was a similar paucity of third party DNA, though forensic scientist Ros Hammond told the inquest there was 'certainly evidence' of at least two unidentified people at the flat.

There was no evidence that the flat had been 'wiped' of prints. Yet circumstances suggest that someone else, who knew their business enough not to leave clues, had been at work there. Probably wearing gloves.

Another spy? His family think so; they believe someone skilled in the 'dark arts' was responsible for Mr Williams' death.

There was no sign of a break-in, but police found that the front door latch could be reached and raised through the letterbox.

The top flat at 36 Alderney Street did not seem to be a very 'safe' safe house at all.

Was he killed by MI6?

The theory that Mr Williams was killed by his employers, Britain's own secret service, is perhaps the most outré and disturbing, better suited to the pages of a sensational spy thriller.

No credible motive has been advanced as to why the spymasters would kill one of their own, in circumstances that would attract the most sensational publicity, in their own safe house, in central London.

However, it was by no means discounted by the coroner. Dr Wilcox said that while there was no evidence to suggest he died at the hands of MI6, 'it is still a legitimate line of inquiry'.

Guardian : Gareth Williams and the prurience of the press

Gareth Williams and the prurience of the press

In coverage of the MI6 spy's death, the media persevered with an irresponsible approach to those who stray from sexual norms

Juliet Jacques | May 4, 2012

"On the balance of probability," said Fiona Wilcox, the Westminster coroner working on the inquest, MI6 officer Gareth Williams was "unlawfully killed". Stating that this could not be definitively established and that the case may never be satisfactorily explained, Wilcox also lamented that the "unusual circumstances" – Williams's body was found in a padlocked holdall in the bath of his London flat – had immediately generated "endless [media] speculation" about his personal life, to the dismay of his family.

Days before Wilcox delivered her verdict, newspapers carried stories about Williams's sexual practices, suggesting that they played a part in his death without waiting for Wilcox to assert her certainty that they did not. Here is the latest example of how the press can "monster" victims, or alleged perpetrators of crimes if they are thought to have diverged from conservative sexual or gender norms, sensationalising personal details (which they've often made considerable effort to root up) in search of saleable stories.

At its worst – during the hunt for Joanna Yeates's killer, for example – this can deny someone their reputation and right to a fair trial. In this case, as in many others, it perpetuates a victim-blaming culture, the implication that Williams's tastes caused his demise being intertwined with homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, and a curious mixture of fascination and contempt for BDSM and those who partake in it.

This prurience is as old as the mass media itself. In the Victorian era, the argument about whether or not details about sexual or gender variance should be published ostensibly concerned public morality. As Boulton and Park, two cross-dressers charged with "conspiring and inciting others to commit unnatural offences", awaited trial in 1870-71, the Society for the Suppression of Vice urged newspapers not to document the case. The Pall Mall Gazette refused, but long before Rupert Murdoch got near it, the Times covered everything, including the "medical examination" to which the Metropolitan police illegally subjected Boulton and Park in an attempt to prove that they'd had anal sex, arguing that "its novel and extraordinary features" made it sure to be "of interest to hundreds and thousands" (and, as such, hugely profitable).

Step forward into the 21st century and the terms have changed. It's no longer a matter of the press protecting the public from apparently unspeakable practices, but preventing the press from invading the public's privacy, especially if editors or journalists think aspects of their lives can be easily sold. This is a constant issue for Britain's transgender population: Trans Media Watch presented twice to the Leveson inquiry about how newspapers "out" trans people for solely exploitative reasons, often accompanying their articles with "before and after" photos, old names and anything else that will undermine their hard-fought identities, usually to their great distress.

The nastiest instance – one that parallels the coverage of Williams, rife with speculation about the women's clothing in his home – came when human rights lawyer David/Sonia Burgess was pushed on to the track at King's Cross tube station in October 2010. The tabloids revelled in their "man in a dress" headlines as their journalists trawled through transgender contacts sites for information on Burgess's private life, all published before an arrest was made. With so much made public about Burgess and the defendant, who was also trans, no trial could start from a neutral position, and besides dancing close to the legal line, this coverage served to intimidate anyone else trying to keep their gender variance out of the public eye, magnifying their fears that its revelation may harm their relationships or careers.

The staggeringly irresponsible behaviour of the media over recent decades, as the balance of power between parliament, the police and the press became untenably skewed, is finally being exposed, and the consequences remain to emerge. Will newspaper owners and editors realise that, with their power, comes responsibility not to prejudice investigations, or attack people of trans histories or alternative sexualities just because they can? Will they learn that just because the public may be interested in an angle, or a story, this does not mean that it is in the public interest? Will they ask themselves: whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty" – or respect for the dead?

Daily Mail : Does spy-in-a-bag's iPhone hold the key to his death? Detectives believe it may have been used to contact his killer

Does spy-in-a-bag's iPhone hold the key to his death? Detectives believe it may have been used to contact his killer

By Chris Greenwood, Crime Reporter | May 4, 2012

Scotland Yard was last night preparing to overhaul the inquiry into the death of Gareth Williams as the spotlight fell on an iPhone belonging to the spy.

Police chiefs are considering replacing the officer who led the investigation from the moment the 31-year-old’s naked body was found in a bag.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire has been temporarily promoted and moved to an East London borough.

Her superiors will re-launch the case within days and could decide that a fresh pair of eyes would help to take advantage of leads thrown up by the explosive inquest into his death.

One of the main focuses of their inquiry is an iPhone found on a table in Mr Williams’s top-floor flat in Pimlico, central London.

The £500 device, one of four owned by the MI6 officer, had been restored to its factory settings, wiping it clean of almost all data, in the late evening of August 15, 2010, only hours before he died.

Doubt remains, however, about how much data is still on the phone and Mr Williams’s inquest heard that a trace of a bondage website visited in October 2009 was found on it.

The mystery deepened when the mobile phone operator told police it had not been used over the previous three months.

Despite this, investigators believe it may have somehow been used to contact whoever killed Mr Williams.

Simon Steggles, of Disklabs, which specialises in retrieving phone data for police, said it may still be possible to find clues on the iPhone.

He said: ‘A factory reset puts the iPhone into the same state as it would be when you first purchase it. If access to the user’s computer is available, it may be possible to recover data from a back-up.’

Police are considering whether a short video of Mr Williams dancing while wearing nothing but a pair of women’s boots may have been sent to a third-party via the phone.

Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox found Mr Williams was probably unlawfully killed, getting into the bag alive but then dying from suffocation or a mystery poison.

She highlighted how police missed potentially vital clues by failing to recover his possessions from his workplace, including nine computer memory sticks.

Up to 50 MI6 and GCHQ officers now face having DNA samples taken and being interviewed by counter terrorism detectives. Dr Wilcox refused to rule out that Mr Williams was killed by someone at the intelligence agency, saying it remains a ‘legitimate line of inquiry’.

Murder squad detectives strongly suspect a member of the security services was in the victim’s flat on the night he died.

Detectives are also pinning their hopes on the results of forensic analysis of human traces recovered from a green hand towel.

But scientists at LGC Forensics have warned that the results of low-copy testing, in which tiny traces of DNA are ‘grown’ until they can be identified, could take a further eight weeks.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said senior officers were giving ‘careful consideration’ to any new ‘evidential opportunities’.

IOL News (Zambia) : Cops turn to ‘spy-in-bag’ iPhone

Cops turn to ‘spy-in-bag’ iPhone

By CHRIS GREENWOOD | May 4, 2012

Scotland Yard was on Thursday preparing to overhaul the inquiry into the death of Gareth Williams as the spotlight fell on an iPhone belonging to the spy.

Police chiefs are considering replacing the officer who led the investigation from the moment the 31-year-old’s naked body was found in a bag.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire has been temporarily promoted and moved to an East London borough.

Her superiors will re-launch the case within days and could decide that a fresh pair of eyes would help to take advantage of leads thrown up by the explosive inquest into his death.

One of the main focuses of their inquiry is an iPhone found on a table in Mr Williams’s top-floor flat in Pimlico, central London.

The £500 device, one of four owned by the MI6 officer, had been restored to its factory settings, wiping it clean of almost all data, in the late evening of August 15, 2010, only hours before he died.

Doubt remains, however, about how much data is still on the phone and Mr Williams’s inquest heard that a trace of a bondage website visited in October 2009 was found on it.

The mystery deepened when the mobile phone operator told police it had not been used over the previous three months.

Despite this, investigators believe it may have somehow been used to contact whoever killed Mr Williams.

Simon Steggles, of Disklabs, which specialises in retrieving phone data for police, said it may still be possible to find clues on the iPhone.

He said: “A factory reset puts the iPhone into the same state as it would be when you first purchase it. If access to the user’s computer is available, it may be possible to recover data from a back-up.”

Police are considering whether a short video of Mr Williams dancing while wearing nothing but a pair of women’s boots may have been sent to a third-party via the phone.

Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox found Mr Williams was probably unlawfully killed, getting into the bag alive but then dying from suffocation or a mystery poison.

She highlighted how police missed potentially vital clues by failing to recover his possessions from his workplace, including nine computer memory sticks.

Up to 50 MI6 and GCHQ officers now face having DNA samples taken and being interviewed by counter terrorism detectives. Dr Wilcox refused to rule out that Mr Williams was killed by someone at the intelligence agency, saying it remains a “legitimate line of inquiry”.

Murder squad detectives strongly suspect a member of the security services was in the victim’s flat on the night he died.

Detectives are also pinning their hopes on the results of forensic analysis of human traces recovered from a green hand towel.

But scientists at LGC Forensics have warned the results of low-copy testing, in which tiny traces of DNA are ‘grown’ until they can be identified, could take a further eight weeks.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said senior officers were giving “careful consideration” to any new “evidential opportunities”. -

Daily Mail

Telegraph : Tensions building between police and spies over Gareth Williams death

Tensions building between police and spies over Gareth Williams death

MI6 fear Scotland Yard is trying to make it a scapegoat for failings in the investigation into the death of the spy found dead in a bag, senior Whitehall sources said yesterday.

By Tom Whitehead and Martin Evans | May 4, 2012

Tensions are growing between the intelligence services and police following criticism by the coroner who investigated the death of Gareth Williams.

Concluding the inquest on Wednesday, Dr Fiona Wilcox said that “on the balance of probabilities” Mr Williams was “unlawfully killed” by a mystery third party.

Dr Wilcox criticised the delays in spotting Mr Williams was missing and apparent failures in the handling of potential evidence.

She also said raised that prospect that another spy may have been involved in the death and said it was a "legitimate line of inquiry" for police.

It emerged yesterday that officers were planning to take DNA samples of up to 50 spies as the inquiry in to Mr Williams’ death continues.

A senior Whitehall source said the intelligence services were "frustrated" by the suggestion they had not co-operated fully with the police.

The 31-year-old’s naked decomposing body was discovered in a padlocked sports bag in the bath of his Pimlico home in London in August 2010.

It had been there for a week without anyone raises concerns that the spy, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, had gone missing.

The inquest heard how nine memory sticks that may have belonged to the codebreaker and a bag similar to the one he was found dead in were discovered his office but never handed over to Met Police.

The coroner criticised MI6 and Det Supt Michael Broster, the head of the Met counter-terrorism team that acted as a conduit between the investigating officers and the intelligence services.

However, while MI6 has apologized for the flaws surrounding Mr Williams wellbeing, it has insisted it at no point withheld evidence.

A lawyer for the family has previously suggested someone expert in the “dark arts” of the secret service was linked to the death.

Scotland Yard refused to comment on what future inquiries may be made as a result of the review or whether there are any intentions to interview more intelligence officers.

A small number of them were originally spoken to by police but no formal statement was ever made and signed.

Forensic experts are still examining whether there is DNA on a towel found in the kitchen and hope to have a result within weeks.

An iPhone that was reset the day before Mr Williams is believed to have died also continues to be a focus for the police.

There is no evidence of any calls being made to or from it before it was effectively wiped but it was backed up to a laptop on the same day.

Dr Wilcox questioned whether it may have provided clues such as an arrangement to meet someone over the internet.

However, technology experts believe police failed to properly examine the phone because information could have been retrieved.