BBC : Profile: MI6 spy Gareth Williams

Profile: MI6 spy Gareth Williams

May 8, 2012

The inquest into the death of MI6 employee Gareth Williams, whose body was found in a padlocked sports bag in his central London flat in August 2010, found that he was "on the balance of probabilities" unlawfully killed.

But what is known about the 31-year-old code-breaker - described by his family as "a very private person"?

Mr Williams, originally from Holyhead, north Wales, worked as a communications officer at government listening post GCHQ, in Cheltenham, but was on a three-year secondment to MI6 in London.

Police officers went to his MI6-owned top-floor flat at 36 Alderney Street - in a part of Pimlico described by a neighbour as "a very mixed area of bankers and politicians" - on Monday 23 August.

They went there after colleagues contacted the police earlier that day saying they had not seen Mr Williams for at least 10 days.

They found his naked body, which had been padlocked inside a zipped-up large red North Face sports holdall, in the empty bath of an ensuite bathroom of the master bedroom.

Police, who have repeatedly said the death remains "suspicious and unexplained", now believe he died in the early hours of Tuesday 16 August.

Mr Williams, a keen cyclist who often took part in road races and time trials, was brought up on the island of Anglesey and attended Bodedern High School.

A talented pupil, he graduated from Bangor University with a first class degree in maths aged 17 after beginning his university studies while at secondary school.

His maths teacher at Bodedern, Geraint Williams, has praised Gareth as an "exceptional" pupil who was "the best logician" he had met.

"If you explained something once to Gareth he remembered it, you didn't have to explain it again," he said.

"It didn't surprise me at all that he was very interested in codes and ciphers and it didn't really surprise me that he was recruited by GCHQ.

"He was definitely going to go into something like that, with his brain."

'Loving son'

Mr Williams went on to study for a postgraduate certificate in mathematics at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, in 2000, but dropped out a year later before taking up the job at GCHQ in Cheltenham.

His boss there has spoken of him as a "world-class" intelligence officer and "something of a prodigy".

Stephen Gale said it was "quite remarkable" that Mr Williams - who joined GCHQ aged 21 - had achieved what he had at such a young age.

Mr Gale said: "Colleagues recall a young man who was very close to his father - he spoke about their climbing trips together.

"They remember him as a keen cyclist. One colleague said it was like a red bullet flying around the place."

In the days after his death, his family described Mr Williams in a statement as a "generous, loving son, brother, and friend" whose loss had devastated them.

They remembered him as "a great athlete" who "loved cycling and music", and as "a very private person".

He often returned home to Anglesey to mother Ellen and father Ian, who works at the Wylfa Nuclear Power Station.

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club - joined by Mr Williams at the age of 17 - said he had last seen the "lovely young man" at a club meeting on Boxing Day.

"We were club mates but Gareth wasn't the sort to go to the pub after a race, so he didn't have any close friends in the group," he said.

And a cyclist at Cambridge University's bicycle club described Mr Williams as "a shy chap" with a "peculiarly memorable laugh and smile".

Mr Williams' uncle, Anglesey councillor William Hughes, meanwhile, said his "very talented" nephew "would never talk about his work - and the family knew not to ask, really".

A neighbour in Pimlico said he and others had never seen Mr Williams, adding: "It's not like you'd tell your neighbours if you were a spy."

Police 'did wrong'

In late December 2010, police revealed some "embarrassing, hurtful and distressing" details about Mr Williams which they said was necessary in the search for evidence.

They said he owned £15,000-worth of unworn women's designer clothing, which were kept in six boxes at his flat, and that he had visited a drag cabaret in east London four days before his death and had tickets to two more.

Police said he occasionally spent between 30 minutes and an hour on bondage sites.

They also said a witness had reported seeing him in a gay bar but that they did not know for certain he was gay.

However, in April 2011 Mr Williams' close friend Sian Lloyd-Jones questioned suggestions his death was linked to his private life and called on police to broaden their inquiry.

She told the police "did wrong" by releasing information about women's clothing "but didn't reveal that there was £10,000 of mountaineering equipment as well".

Ms Lloyd-Jones said he was not gay and the women's clothes were too small for him and may have been intended for her or her sister.

Elizabeth Guthrie - the second friend to appear before the coroner - described her friendship with Mr Williams as based on their mutual love of history, art, Japanese Manga cartoons, travel and humorous anecdotes.

Ms Guthrie remembered his "brilliant sense of humour" and "enormous intellect".

She also said the women's clothing found by police "certainly would not be for him" - that he had no interest in cross-dressing and she believed he was "straight".

Mr Williams' sister, Ceri Subbe, said she believed the items of women's clothing were possibly intended as gifts.

She also told the inquest her brother's enthusiasm about his job had begun to fade.

"He disliked office culture, post-work drinks, flash car competitions and the rat race. He even spoke of friction in the office," her statement said.

Ms Subbe added that Mr Williams had "encountered more red tape than he was comfortable with" in his role.

The inquest into the death of the MI6 officer later heard he was once found tied to his bed by his former landlady in Cheltenham.

Jennifer Elliot said she once found him tied to his bedstead in his boxer shorts in what she thought was a "sexually motivated" act. She said he had called for help when he could not untie himself.

'Dark arts'

Mr Williams returned to his flat - half a mile from MI6 headquarters on the banks of the River Thames - on Wednesday 11 August 2010 after a fly-drive holiday to the west coast of the US.

Police say he had been shopping in London's West End and Knightsbridge areas a number of times since then.

CCTV images captured on Saturday 14 August showed him entering Holland Park tube station at about 1500 BST.

On Sunday 15 August, he went to Harrods after visiting a cash machine and, at about 1430 BST, CCTV images showed him in Hans Crescent, heading towards Sloane Street, near the Dolce & Gabbana store.

A post-mortem examination and toxicology tests - which found no trace of drugs, alcohol or poison - and the police investigation have all failed to establish a cause of death.

Police believe that Mr Williams, whose family think may have been killed by an agent "specialising in the dark arts of the secret services", was helped into the bag.

Coroner Fiona Wilcox said it was unlikely he got into the bag by himself but doubted his death would ever be explained.

This Is London : Heartbreak and conspiracy theories in home village of the spy-in-the bag

Heartbreak and conspiracy theories in home village of the spy-in-the bag

‘This is David Kelly all over again — a cover-up. There was no evidence... It doesn’t add up’ -- Schoolfriend David Jones

Kiran Randhawa | April 20, 2012

The inhabitants of Holyhead and surrounding villages are well-versed in the various theories about Gareth Williams’s mysterious death.

One thing they — as well as those closer to him — are resigned to, however, is never knowing the truth.

Friends of the MI6 spy, who grew up in the remote Welsh outpost, said they fear he will become “another victim” of a “cover-up” by British authorities, likening his death to that of weapons expert David Kelly.

They are less than optimistic that next week’s inquest, or any other exhaustive inquiry, will yield answers to bring his family some sense of peace.

Since their son’s body was found crammed into a sports bag, Ian and Ellen Williams have withdrawn from the local community. Mr Williams, a keen runner who was often out jogging prior to the tragedy, is rarely seen. But it appears that the electrical engineer, who works at the local Wylfa nuclear power station, is coping better than his wife.

Mrs Williams rarely leaves the modest family bungalow in the village of Valley and has not worked since her son’s death.

Gareth Williams’s elder sister Ceri Subbe, a married physiotherapist who lives in Chester, was described by friends as “sensitive” and “badly damaged” by his death. She is among 30 witnesses, including MI6 officers, due to give evidence at the inquest.

Mr Williams’s grandfather John Owen, who lives locally and recently had heart surgery, was “traumatised” by the tragedy. Trefor Lloyd Hughes, 64, a councillor and close friend of the family said: “They are such kind people. This has shocked them to the core. They really are suffering.”

Building company boss Keith Thompson, 64, a cycling friend of Gareth Williams from Trearddur Bay, said: “We would like to hear the truth next week but we won’t get it. This will be another David Kelly. It’s a cover-up and I believe it is possible our secret services were involved.”

Mr Thompson used to run Holyhead Cycling Club and had known the GCHQ codebreaker since he was 14, when he joined. Mr Williams, from a “very athletic” family, excelled at the sport. “The family is devastated,” said Mr Thompson. “His mother in particular has taken it badly. Her life is ruined. It has hit her the hardest. They were all very close. They tell you that they are just living and coping day by day. I don’t think the family will ever get justice or peace.”

He said he last saw Mr Williams in May 2010, three months before his death, when he returned home for a cycle race.

David Jones, 31, who went to school with Mr Williams, said: “This is David Kelly all over again. A cover-up. There was no evidence at the scene, it just doesn’t add up.”

Mr Williams was considered a child prodigy by the locals. He did his A-levels at 14 and went to study maths at Bangor University at 15. After graduating with a first at 17, he studied for a PhD in computer science at the University of Manchester, going on to Cambridge for a postgraduate certificate in advanced maths before GCHQ approached him in 2001. He was on secondment to MI6 when police found him dead at his Pimlico flat in August 2010.

At a pre-inquest hearing last month, the family’s lawyer Anthony O’Toole said there was a “high probability” a third person was in the flat when Mr Williams died. “The unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services, and perhaps evidence was removed from the scene post mortem by an expert in those dark arts.”

BBC : Talented MI6 spy Gareth Williams 'never spoke of work'

Talented MI6 spy Gareth Williams 'never spoke of work'

December 22, 2010

An MI6 spy who was found dead in his central London flat was a talented young man who was close to his family, but would never speak to them about his work.

Gareth Williams, 31, from Holyhead on Anglesey, north Wales, was found dead in a padlocked holdall in his central London flat in August.

The death remains suspicious and unexplained with no conclusive cause found.

Mr Williams regularly went home to north Wales to visit his family.

His parents, Ian and Ellen, live in Valley, Anglesey, while his father works at Wylfa nuclear power station. His grandmother and grandfather lived in Holyhead.

His uncle, William Hughes, said his nephew had never spoken about his work.

"He was very, very talented," he added.

"He would never talk about his work and the family knew not to ask really."

Mr Williams' academic talent was evident at an early age, when he was a pupil at Bodedern Secondary School in Anglesey.

His maths teacher Geraint Williams said he had been an "exceptional" pupil.

'Very modest'

"He was probably not the best mathematician I have seen, but the best logician," he said.

"If you explained something once, he remembered it, you didn't have to explain it again."

While he was a secondary school pupil, Mr Williams was also being coached at Bangor University and graduated with a first class degree in maths at just 17.

In 2000, he took a postgraduate certificate in mathematics at St Catharine's College, Cambridge.

He was then offered a job at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham.

"It didn't surprise me at all that he was very interested in codes and ciphers," Geraint Williams said.

"It didn't really surprise me that he was recruited by GCHQ."

Mr Williams worked as a communication officer at GCHQ before being sent on secondment to MI6 for a year.

The head of MI6 Sir John Sawers described Mr Williams as a "highly talented person" who was "very modest and generous as well".

He added that Mr Williams had done "really valuable work with us in the cause of national security".

Mr Williams grew up as a keen cyclist and joined Holyhead Cycling Club when he was 17.

Keith Thompson, from the club, said: "He was a really lovely young man.

"We were club mates but Gareth wasn't the sort to go to the pub after a race, so he didn't have any close friends in the group.

"It was his cycling that we knew about. He was known for being very good on hill races but a couple of times he won the club's 'best all-rounder' award."

An inquest will be held at Westminster Coroner's Court on 15 February.

Guardian : Who was Gareth Williams?

Who was Gareth Williams?

When the bagged body of an MI6 agent was found in a bathtub, speculation went into overdrive. Was it suicide? Murder? A professional hit, or a sexual game gone wrong?

Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy | November 20, 2010

Three months after his body was found in a holdall in the bath of his Pimlico flat, police still seem no closer to finding out what happened to Gareth Williams.

On Tuesday 24 August, a storm was brewing off the North Wales coast. As gusts reached 50mph in the village of Valley, on Anglesey, two sodden police officers stood at a front door on a close of modern bungalows above the beach. They knocked and knocked. Eventually someone ran out into the rain to tell them that Ellen and Ian Williams were away on holiday in the US. While detectives tried to locate the Williams abroad, someone found Ellen's father, John Hughes, who lived around the corner and broke the news: his 31-year-old grandson Gareth, a boy who had always been fit and healthy, was dead. Grandpa John was so distraught that he tripped, cut his head and had to be taken to hospital.

Then Gareth's uncle, William Hughes, who lived on a farm in nearby Trefor village, got the call. "Gareth couldn't be dead? Surely not?" Uncle William sat numbly with Gareth's 86-year-old great aunt before their open fire, staring at the porcelain figures on the mantelpiece. Gareth had been an exceptional boy, selected to work as some kind of analyst for GCHQ, the government's secret listening station in Cheltenham, but the family never talked about it. And neither did Gareth. He'd been home just three weeks earlier, recalled Hughes, cycling the lanes on his race bike before the whole family had got together. But his life was "now being lived a long way from the family in Anglesey," Hughes said, "so some things we couldn't know."

On 25 August, Ian and Ellen Williams touched down at Manchester airport and were met by police, who officially broke the news that two days earlier in London, a man believed to be their son had been found dead. The body had been found padlocked inside a sports bag in the flat where Gareth was staying. It could have been there for up to a fortnight. As they were escorted to the capital, to join their daughter Ceri, there were news reports everywhere: "British spy murdered." Apparently he had been "stabbed to death". According to stories, Gareth was a brain-box, a techie who "worked with codes", as far as they knew. Was he also a spy, they wondered?

For Ellen and Ian, Gareth's death was a horror story that "destroyed" them. For the rest of the world, it was a rare glimpse into the clandestine world of espionage. His death was compared to that of Georgi Markov, the Bulgarian dissident killed by a poison-tipped umbrella in London 32 years before, and the 2006 murder of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. Cold war details increased public fervour. The building in which the body was found was owned by a private company, registered offshore, called New Rodina. Rodina was Russian for "motherland". Did real spies read John Le Carré too?

In the midst of lurid speculation, Ian and Ellen Williams reached London. In normal circumstances, they would be required to make a physical identification. However, given the degree of decomposition, police would rely on family photos. Was Gareth murdered, his distraught family asked. Despite launching a major investigation – Operation Finlayson – Scotland Yard were finding it a hard question to answer. One major problem facing investigators was the length of time that the body had lain undiscovered. Another was that they were being blocked by the security services from probing too deeply into Williams's life. Detectives had no idea what Gareth Williams really did or who he was, and had been unable as yet to find anyone close to him. They needed the family's help.

Gareth's sister Ceri, a physiotherapist, and her husband Dr Chris Subbe, a senior registrar at Wrexham Maelor Hospital, told police they had seen Gareth in June, when he had taken them for tea at the Ritz in London to celebrate their second wedding anniversary. He'd been in the capital for more than six months, but couldn't say what he was doing.

The three spent that afternoon "laughing and joking", and afterwards continued to talk frequently by phone. Ceri last spoke to her brother on 11 August, after he returned from a short trip to the US. He now intended to "tidy things up", before returning to GCHQ in Cheltenham on 3 September.

Ceri's dates matched what police learned from Gareth's former landlady, Jenny Elliot, who had rented him a room in her house near Cheltenham for the 10 years he had worked for GCHQ, before transferring to London last year. Gareth had called her in August, asking if he could return. "Like we were going to say no," Elliot says. "He was about the best lodger you could ever have. I mean, you never heard a word from him. He had no TV, record player, or anything."

Ceri had called her brother again about a week later. No answer. She tried repeatedly, becoming worried. Gareth was like a Swiss watch. Now she contacted the police; the security services were already concerned, as Gareth had failed to show for work. On 23 August, at 6.30pm, a uniformed officer was sent to Williams's top-floor flat in a Georgian townhouse in Alderney Street, Pimlico. It was only a few hundred yards from the MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall, and was used by the Secret Intelligence Service as a safe house. A lettings agent who held a spare key showed the policeman in. He was asked to wait downstairs as the officer went up and entered the curtained rooms. The place was "spotless": two iPhones, some sim cards and an Apple notebook sat on a table. Then he entered the bathroom, and found a holdall in the bathtub. Red liquid seeped from it. Inside was a body, in such a contorted position that he thought its "legs and arms had been cut off". Radioing for assistance, the policeman noted that there were no signs a struggle. This was not a robbery or home invasion. It was a "neat job", a euphemism for a professional kill.

Given his clearances and access to classified material, Williams's death triggered alarm across Whitehall. MI5 agents swept through the Alderney Street flat, followed by detectives from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command, assisted by SO15, Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command. Alderney Street was cordoned off as Home Office scientists began processing the scene. Once the spooks had departed, it was down to the murder squad to study the evidence. So far, they had a body in an "advanced state of decay". There was no weapon and no sign of forced entry or a struggle.

Concentrating on the holdall and its contents, detectives established that Williams had not been stabbed, shot or hacked to pieces. On August 25, Home Office pathologist Dr Ben Swift carried out a post-mortem that, together with the first batch of toxicological tests, came back "inconclusive". "If we don't know what to look for, and are not guided by what we see or smell on the body, we cannot find it," says a forensic scientist who worked on the Litvinenko case. "We do 50 obvious poisons. Fifty rare. We can do the isotopes. Litvinenko alerted us to that. But in the absence of a specific direction, the possibilities are as limitless as a killer's imagination… and we cannot test for that."

Detectives set out their theories. One reading of the crime scene pointed to a forensically aware hit man. Slender 5ft 7in Gareth had been stuffed inside the near-airtight red North Face sports bag and placed in the bath, containing any spillage and minimising odours, too. The heating was on, increasing the rate of decomposition, which significantly lessened the chances of retrieving evidence from the corpse.

Or perhaps the body in the bag was evidence of a stage-managed "personal event", masterminded by a controlling individual. Was this a suicide (with Williams acting on his own)? Or a sadistic or masochistic sexual act gone wrong (with Williams engaging in some kind of auto-erotic asphyxiation?). "If you can imagine it, then we are investigating it," a detective said in late August. But what would shape police inquiries was the dawning realisation that Gareth Williams had not been alone.

Returning to the holdall, studying the zips and lock, police became certain that he could not have locked himself inside. And there was further proof that someone else must have been in the flat with him: his front door had been locked from the outside.

Criminal psychologists studied the case. One, who spoke anonymously, thought his death might have been a masochistic ritual that had gone wrong: "For a retentive individual with an ever-green mind like Gareth Williams, always on duty and in control, the bag could have been a furtive release."

The Williams family was adamant that the Gareth they knew would not have behaved this way. And, for now, the family was all the police had, since they had found no close friends or lovers. Another pressing problem with their theories was that detectives had failed to turn up any other suspects or accomplices.

Police, pathologists and forensic investigators agreed on one thing only. They would have to focus on the 12 days between the last call Gareth made to Ceri and the discovery of his body on 23 August. Pulling mobile phone records and credit card transactions, scouring hours of CCTV footage, the Operation Finlayson team dug deep, as ever more lurid stories circulated.

"Murdered MI6 worker Gareth Williams was a secret transvestite who may have been killed by a gay lover, detectives said yesterday… Cops found women's clothing that would fit him at his Pimlico flat in central London." The Sun ran with this version of events, while other newspapers, quoting similar unnamed sources, reported that cocaine had been found, a cache of gay pornography, a small armoury of S&M paraphernalia. Williams was also said to have frequently paid for male escorts.

Senior detectives angrily rebutted the stories. Uncle William in Anglesey thought they read like a concerted smear, and wondered why anyone would want to destroy Gareth's reputation after he was dead.

Like most well-constructed character assassinations, however, this one was founded on a grain of fact that made it that much harder to quash. Detectives had been quietly investigating whether Gareth Williams was gay. They had canvassed witnesses in the Vauxhall Cross village of gay clubs and bars, a short walk from Alderney Street. They had also studied Williams's computers and reading matter, his journals, magazines and computer cache. Despite outright denials from his family, detectives were privately certain that Gareth was gay, although they had been unable to find trace of any sexual encounters. They had also come to believe that his sexual orientation was not central to the inquiry (although his sexual preferences might be). There was no evidence of Williams paying for escorts, buying S&M equipment, using porn or drugs of any kind. "This man didn't really even drink," one frustrated detective said.

The police felt they were being hurried along by other parties, keen for the scandal to go away. "Someone, somewhere, who has access to case material, is saying, 'He's queer and asked for it', rather than waiting for the outcome of the case," one veteran detective said.

In North Wales, the family lit their fires, closed their curtains and privately pondered if anyone had ever understood the real Gareth.

At Ysgol Gynradd Morswyn, Gareth's primary school, a short hop between Valley and Holyhead, head teacher Islwyn Williams remembers him as an exceptional pupil. At five, Gareth made a beeline for the school computer and never left it. While most of his classmates were still playing with Lego, Gareth had a GCSE in maths. At the age of 10, he went to secondary school, gaining A grades in A-level maths and computer science at 13. The school contacted Bangor University, which accepted him as a part-time student on a maths degree course. "He was the best logician… with the fastest brain I have ever met," said Geraint Williams, his maths teacher.

Fellow pupils remember Gareth as a loner. Dylan Parry, 34, thought him "isolated" by his intellect. His abilities shut him off from everyone else. He was naive. Parry believed someone "could easily take advantage of him". He recalled Gareth travelling by train each week to university, while still living at home with Ian and Ellen. Too clever for school. Too young for university.

The family downplay his isolation. They point to their closeness and his sporting prowess. By the time he was 17, Gareth had followed his father into competitive cycling. Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club, with whom Ian and Gareth rode, says: "He was a really lovely young man, but wasn't a great conversationalist. Gareth wasn't the sort to go to the pub after a race."

In 1997, aged 18, Gareth left home to begin a PhD at Manchester University, acquiring an advanced level of learning that sat uneasily with his elementary life skills, although his academic mentor, professor Terry Hewitt, believed he could take it: "He was very private and worked well on his own. He was certainly not a 'geek' even if he was reserved." His dissertation focused on computer games. They had always been a private passion, with him achieving an online reputation as unbeatable. Three years on, aged 21, Gareth was approached by the British security services, who the university believes had spotted his precocious online gaming abilities. Hewitt recalled: "In 2000, Gareth came into my office and said, 'I'm going to GCHQ'. He had to tell me, as I was his referee for his vetting." Gareth left Manchester and Anglesey behind to sign the Official Secrets Act.

Williams began an advanced maths course at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, but withdrew the following year, torn between academia and the demands of his new employer. At GCHQ, he was seen as stable, reliable and potentially brilliant, according to a contractor who worked there at the time. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he recalled that GCHQ was a world in which Gareth fitted, working alone, or in small teams, waist-deep in mathematical problems, challenged by cutting-edge technology and real-time problems. Possibly for the first time, he was part of a community of similarly focused individuals who were taken on for their discretion as well as for their brains, intercepting, monitoring and analysing email and telephone calls from around the world. He did feel the pressure, constantly, according to the contractor, who noted that at GCHQ many technicians were as clever or cleverer than Williams.

Work became his life. There was little time for much outside it, something evidenced by how he chose to live, renting a modest room in the Prestbury area of the town. Inside was a single, child-sized bed, a small chest of drawers, three upright wooden chairs and a gas heater – all furnished by Jenny Elliot. Over the decade he spent there, Williams introduced no luxuries, accumulated no clutter. He brought no one back. He rarely even went out after work, excepting an occasional "drink with colleagues". He worked late into the night and rose early. There was something oppressively austere about him, those colleagues thought, something they used to call his "GDR sensibility". So serious and quiet was he that when he did become animated, he "alarmed people with his unusual laugh".

Due to the nature of his work, it is hard for those who met Gareth to describe what he did, and those who talked to us did so having already left GCHQ. But all agreed that, although very capable, Williams was "a middle-ranking" technician "asserting himself in a number of sensitive areas, any one of which could theoretically have brought him into contact with enemies of our state". While GCHQ gathers intelligence from Europe, Africa and Russia, its partners in the US National Security Agency (NSA) also had access to British and European signals traffic at Menwith Hill, a top-secret RAF base near Harrogate, in Yorkshire.

When Williams arrived at Menwith, shortly after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, GCHQ and the NSA were increasingly focused on the threat of Islamist violence at home and abroad. "Between the UK and the US, we were deluged by the chatter from radicals here and over the Atlantic as they talked on landlines, satellite or mobile phones – with contacts in hot countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as with Saudi, and hubs like Dubai," one former GCHQ security consultant said. "A group around Williams worked on software to assemble, search and analyse the data, drawing out patterns and meanings."

Williams's elevation within GCHQ came with the "Liquid Bomb" plot, where a group of British radicals of Asian origin were found to be planning to detonate home-made explosives on board seven flights to major north American cities. Intercepting emails and phone calls between these plotters and their contacts abroad, Williams flew between the UK and the US, working at Fort Meade (the NSA HQ, in Baltimore).

Williams was brought into close proximity to US intelligence, Islamic radicals and Middle Eastern agents. He would rub shoulders with the Russians, too, according to a foreign intelligence analyst based in the UK, who described how technology and software honed by GCHQ was deployed in tracking a Moscow-backed sleeper cell to which Britain had been alerted as early as 2003. The case blew up in June 2010 when 10 people were arrested in the US and accused of being part of an espionage ring. One of them, a glamorous 28-year-old called Anna Chapman, had lived for five years in the UK. According to the former GCHQ contractor, "Williams had been obsessed by the case, its methodology and characters."

He was now on secondment to MI6, with its focus on foreign targets and intelligence-gathering, becoming more of a spy than a desk-bound technician, although Williams would shortly be called back to GCHQ to work on a new and ambitious project.

He had been liaising again with counterparts at the NSA, who were part of an effort to create an American cyber defence policy, to prevent the siphoning off of secret or commercially sensitive data or a military style assault on defence or civil systems. Its importance was alluded to last month in a speech by home secretary Theresa May, in which she identified cyber crime as among the pre-eminent future threats facing the UK. A cyber crimes specialist who knew Williams revealed that at the time of his death he was researching British vulnerability to Russian, Turkish and Chinese gangs: "He was already on top of it."

Rogue individuals and nation states, Islamist terror groups and radical loners, extortionists and organised criminals – these were just some of those Williams had observed, investigated, disrupted and provoked. Any one of them was capable of reciprocating, lethally.

Back at the Yard, Operation Finlayson detectives were looking at a vast range of potential threats, but still had few clues, no accomplices or even a plausible denouement for a man whose personal and professional inclinations were to camouflage everything he did.

By September, an exhaustive trawl had come up with some CCTV footage. In the frames released to the public, Gareth Williams saunters by Holland Park tube station in west London at 3pm on 14 August, three days after he had last spoken to his sister.

Staff at the nearby Valerie's Patisserie said that in the week before, a man fitting Gareth's description had spent several hours in the cafe on consecutive days, sitting at the rear with a laptop, receiving occasional visitors. One security source said that he believed Williams was "working" in west London – monitoring one of the many foreign embassies in the area – just as he had been "working" while on his recent "holiday" to the US.

Police released footage of Williams on 15 August, too. At 2pm, he was filmed at a cash machine, visiting Harrods, walking at 2.30pm via Hans Crescent in Knightsbridge towards Sloane Street. Soon after he vanished.

By the end of September, after a second barrage of toxicology tests proved inconclusive, Gareth Williams's body was released and laid to rest in North Wales. On 26 September, the extended Williams clan gathered outside the Bethel chapel in Holyhead to bid farewell. Given the florid rumours that had circulated around his death, they were surprised by the appearance there of Sir John Sawers, head of MI6. Williams had been with his service for less than a year, yet Sawyers told reporters, "I wanted to be here today as the only public face of the Secret Intelligence Service. My deepest sympathies go to the family. Gareth was a hugely talented person, and he was very modest and generous as well. He did really valuable work with us in the cause of national security."

What a difference 30 days make. After an investigation that had failed to turn up the smallest vice, Williams was no longer lampooned but celebrated as a very British spy: modest, capable and known well by no one.

As they buried Gareth, Dr Chris Subbe, speaking for his wife Ceri and the family, recalled how they had laughed and chatted with him at the Ritz, celebrating their marriage and his brilliant career. "The world was ours for the taking," he said. "Yet here I am three months later to the day, trying to describe your rich life with my poor words."

The Australian : Murdered spy more James Bondage than James Bond

Murdered spy more James Bondage than James Bond

From: The Times | August 28, 2010

POLICE investigating the murder of a British spy found bondage equipment in his flat and evidence linking him to a male escort, The Times has learnt.

The find has raised questions over how Gareth Williams's private life slipped through the vetting procedures of the security services.

Senior security personnel are said to be "extremely concerned" that an employee with high clearance had a lifestyle that put him in danger of being compromised.

A source close to the investigation said evidence discovered in the London flat included bondage items, porn films and paraphernalia associated with sado-masochism. It is also understood Mr Williams, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, the British government's top-secret listening post at Cheltenham, has been linked to a male escort.

Detectives have focused their investigations on the private life of Mr Williams, 30, since he was found on Monday murdered and stuffed into a sports bag in his flat in Pimlico, a short walk from MI6 headquarters in London.

It also emerged that Mr Williams travelled regularly to Washington DC on official business, raising further concerns about potential national security breaches because of the information to which he had access.

The national security agency refused to confirm or deny yesterday that Mr Williams, who is believed to have been an expert in codes, had worked for it.

The initial post-mortem examination has proved inconclusive and several tests, thought to include toxicology tests, are now being conducted.

The picture of Mr Williams that has emerged is that of a genius who led a solitary existence. Friends described him as athletic, kind and intelligent, but extremely private. Dylan Parry, a school friend, described him as academically gifted but socially naive, an isolated child fascinated by mathematics and computers. He was "the kind of person who found it difficult to engage with people on a normal level".

A former maths teacher said Mr Williams had "definitely the best brain" he had known. "It didn't surprise me at all that he was very interested in codes and ciphers and it didn't surprise me that he was recruited by GCHQ."

Online tributes mainly referred to his shy and quiet nature. One fellow Cambridge student said: "He seemed a shy and quiet chap, but had a peculiarly memorable laugh and smile that are haunting me somewhat today. I knew that Gareth had gone on to work at Cheltenham but would never have imagined his life culminating in this."

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club, said he had known Mr Williams since he joined the club at 17. "We were clubmates, but Gareth wasn't the sort to go the pub after a race so he didn't have any close friends in the group. I never spoke to him about his job or his private life."

Wales Online : Police believe spy knew his killer

Police believe spy knew his killer

Western Mail | August 27, 2010

THE family of a Welsh spy, whose murder at his London flat remains shrouded in mystery, hit out last night at allegations about his private life.

Detectives investigating the murder of 30-year-old Gareth Williams were picking over details of his life last night for clues that could identify his killer.

The code expert’s decomposing body was found stuffed into a bag in the bath of his government flat.

He was days from completing a one-year secondment to the headquarters of MI6 from his job at national “listening post” GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Further tests were taking place to determine how the cycling and fitness fanatic met his death after a post-mortem examination was inconclusive.

A pathologist found Mr Williams had not been stabbed or shot and there were no obvious signs of strangulation.

Police are refusing to categorise the case as a murder inquiry, despite the bizarre circumstances, as they insist he may have died innocently.

One line of inquiry is reportedly that he is the victim of a sex game that went wrong and questions remain over why he was not discovered sooner.

Police believe Mr Williams’ body could have lain undiscovered for up to a fortnight and it is thought he was on holiday at the time of his death.

They believe the key to the case could lie in his private life.

But his uncle, William Hughes, said suggestions reported in London newspapers that the GCHQ and MI6 officer was gay and a transvestite had deeply upset his parents, Ian and Elen, from Valley on Anglesey.

The couple were still too upset to speak of their son’s death yesterday.

But 62-year-old Mr Hughes said: “They’re devastated. That is the worst part of it [the allegations about his private life].

“Terrible accusations have been made and there’s no truth whatsoever in them. They just need to be left alone and given space.”

Mr Hughes said Mr Williams’ parents remained in the dark as to whether his death was linked to his security services work or his personal life. Mr Williams has been described as an extremely private person.

Investigators suspect he might have known his killer as there was no sign of forced entry at his top-floor flat in smart Alderney Street, Pimlico.

Police have begun examining his mobile phone and financial records as well as CCTV cameras from streets and businesses surrounding his home.

His home has been the subject of a fingertip search amid fears that top-secret work material could have gone missing.

Mr Williams’ parents travelled to London with his sister Ceri, who lives near Wrexham, yesterday to speak to police and formally identify his body.

Mr Hughes said they were deeply shocked and flew back from a holiday in North America after learning of his death.

He said: “The last time I saw Gareth was just a few months ago at a family party and he was fine.

“He was always a quiet person, he was from a young age. But this is a close family and we all see each other quite regularly at family occasions.”

He said he never knew Mr Williams to bring home a girlfriend or a partner, describing him as a “very, very private person”.

“It’s a long way from Anglesey to Cheltenham and London. When he came home, he brought his bicycle. He enjoyed cycling around the island,” he said.

“I knew he worked at GCHQ and he had been working in London but I didn’t know what he did. It wasn’t said that we shouldn’t talk about it, I simply never asked and he never told me.

“He was a bright boy from a young age and his parents were very proud of him.”

Officers broke down the door of Mr Williams’ home on Monday afternoon when attempts by government officials to locate him via his former landlady failed.

Investigators from the Metropolitan Police’s homicide and serious crime command labelled the death as “suspicious and unexplained”.

Former landlady Jenny Elliott said the victim lived in a flat attached to her Cheltenham property for 10 years and was preparing to return on September 3.

“He phoned me a few weeks ago to say he was coming back,” she said.

She described him as “a lovely guy, very friendly, very well-mannered and polite and no trouble at all”.

She added: “He was often away. He went to America to work a lot and often combined it with holiday because he hated flying.”

Mr Williams’ London neighbours described him as “extremely friendly”, athletic and a keen cyclist.

He joined Cambridge University’s St Catharine’s College to undertake a postgraduate certificate in mathematics in 2000, but dropped out a year later.

Sources close to the inquiry said it was not clear how he died and played down speculation that the murder was linked to his secretive line of work.

One source said: “The suggestion there is terrorism or national security links to this case is pretty low down the list of probabilities.”

The Alderney Street flat is about half-a-mile from the riverside headquarters of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service.

A childhood friend of Mr Williams described him as academically gifted but socially naive.

Dylan Parry, 34, said the GCHQ codes and cyphers expert was an isolated child fascinated by mathematics and computers.

Mr Parry, a volunteer at Westminster Cathedral, went to school with Mr Williams at Uwchradd Bodedern secondary.

He said Mr Williams travelled to Bangor University every week aged 16 to study for a mathematics degree part time. He graduated with a first class mathematics degree from Bangor aged 19.

He said: “It was clear he was going to go far, but we all assumed he would end up in academia.

“Finding out he became a spy was a shock.”

He graduated with a first class mathematics degree from Bangor University aged 19.

He continued his studies with an elite course at St Catharine’s College but dropped out.

The university is one of the traditional hunting grounds for recruiters looking for bright young things to join the intelligence community.

Ronald Jones, 86, who lives with his wife Eileen, a few doors away from the Williams family on Anglesey, said: “The whole family keep to themselves very much.

“We’ve never had a discussion with them.

“I don’t remember ever seeing Gareth’s mother but the father runs every day.

“They’ve lived here for about 18 years.”

Mrs Jones, 85, said: “They were polite and always greeted you but further than that I don’t think they bothered with anyone.”

One neighbour, who asked not to be named, described the family as “really lovely people”.

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club, said he had known Mr Williams since he joined the club at the age of 17.

He said: “I heard the news in a text message yesterday morning and it was a shock.

“We are a small club, only 20 members, and all of us knew Gareth.

“We are totally devastated. He was a really lovely young man.

“Of course, once he moved to Cheltenham, he joined the club there and we didn’t see much of him.

“I last saw him on our Boxing Day meeting last year.

“He was his usual self really.

“It’s true that he was very quiet. He wasn’t a great conversationalist.

“We were club mates but Gareth wasn’t the sort to go the pub after a race so he didn’t have any close friends in the group.

“I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did with Gareth.

“It was his cycling that we knew about. He was known for being very good on hill races but a couple of times he won the club’s best all-rounder award.

“He was also a good runner but that was to be expected, his whole family is very sporty.

“His father was a member of this club and Ceri was an athlete. We’ll be getting in touch to offer our condolences when they are home.

“We have also cancelled a club event we had planned for tonight. Nobody feels up to it now.”

Daily Post : Cyclists recall talents of murdered Holyhead spy Gareth Williams

Cyclists recall talents of murdered Holyhead spy Gareth Williams

by Deborah James, Daily Post | August 27, 2010

FELLOW cyclists paid tribute to codebreaker Gareth Williams for his skills on two wheels.

Mr Williams, 30, was a talented rider who regularly took part in road races and time trials. He was a former member of Holyhead Cycling Club and belonged to Cheltenham and County Cycling Club.

Records show he took part in cycling races in Snowdonia last September, and on Anglesey in September and on Valentine’s Day this year.

Speaking of their shock at learning of his suspicious death, friends from the cycling community described him as a “maths genius” who came across as “a very nice, friendly and quiet chap”.

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club, said he’d known Mr Williams since he joined the club aged of 17. He had won a trophy for being the Anglesey club’s junior best all rounder in 1996 and was named senior best all rounder from 1997 to 2000.

“I heard the news in a text message and it was a shock,” said Mr Thompson. “We are a small club, only 20 members, and all of us knew Gareth. We are totally devastated. He was a really lovely young man.

“Of course, once he moved to Cheltenham he joined the club there and we didn’t see much of him. I last saw him on our Boxing Day meeting last year. He was his usual self. It’s true that he was very quiet. He wasn’t a great conversationalist.

“We were club mates but Gareth wasn’t the sort to go to the pub after a race so he didn’t have any close friends in the group. I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did.

“It was his cycling that we knew about. He was known for being very good on hill races. He was also a good runner, his whole family is very sporty. His father was a member of this club and (sister) Ceri was an athlete.

“We’ll be getting in touch to offer our condolences when they are home. We have also cancelled a club event we had planned for tonight. Nobody feels up to it now.”

David Hughes, from Clwb Rasio Mona, said: “As neighbouring clubs, we used to come across each other all the time. Although I didn’t know him personally, he was known around the cycling scene as a lovely person. He was a fine sportsman.”

While studying an advanced maths course at Cambridge in 2000, he joined the university cycling club and became the team’s “star rider”. Friends who raced alongside him left messages on the VeloRiders internet forum. One wrote: “He was a maths genius... People sometimes thought he was dense because he spoke rather slowly and sometimes seemed distracted. How wrong can you get?

A fellow Cambridge student called Tim said: “He seemed a shy and quiet chap, but had a peculiarly memorable laugh and smile that are haunting me somewhat today.”

The Australian : Slain spy Gareth Williams linked to bondage, male escort

Slain spy Gareth Williams linked to bondage, male escort

Staff writers | From: The Times | August 27, 2010

POLICE investigating the murder of a British spy found bondage equipment in his flat and evidence linking him to a male escort.

The find has raised questions over how Gareth Williams's private life slipped through the vetting procedures of the security services. Senior security personnel are said to be "extremely concerned" that an employee with high clearance had a lifestyle that put him in danger of being compromised.

A source close to the investigation said that evidence discovered in the London flat included bondage items, porn films and paraphernalia associated with sado-masochism. It is also understood that Mr Williams, who was on secondment to M16 from GCHQ, the Government's top secret listening post, has been linked to a male escort.

Detectives have focused their investigations on the private life of Mr Williams, 30, since he was found on Monday murdered and stuffed into a holdall in his flat in Pimlico, a short walk from M16 headquarters.

It also emerged that Mr Williams travelled regularly to the United States on official business, raising further concerns about potential national security breaches because of the information he had access to. He went to Washington several times a year, stayed for a few weeks each time and went shortly before he died.

Last night the National Security Agency refused to confirm or deny that Mr Williams, who is believed to be an expert in codes and ciphers, had worked for them. It is not unusual for members of the security services to spend time working for government security departments in America.

Jenny Elliott, the spy's former landlady in Cheltenham, said Mr Williams regularly travelled to America. "He would go to Washington about three times a year. It was always Washington. That was part of his job." She said that Mr Williams would usually combine the trip with a holiday.

Detectives from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command may have to wait for up to a week to find out how Mr Williams died. The initial postmortem examination proved inconclusive and several tests, thought to include toxicology tests, are now being conducted.

A picture of Mr Williams as a genius who led a solitary existence began to emerge yesterday. Friends described him as athletic, kind and intelligent, but above all extremely private. Dylan Parry, a schoolfriend, described him as academically gifted but socially naive. Mr Parry, 34, said Mr Williams was an isolated child fascinated by mathematics and computers.

The pair attended Uwchradd Bodedern secondary in Anglesey, where Mr Williams was "the kind of person who found it difficult to engage with people on a normal level".

"It was clear he was going to go far, but we all assumed he would end up in academia. Finding out he became a spy was a shock," Mr Parry said.

Geraint Williams, the spy's maths teacher at Bodedern, said he had "definitely the best brain" he had known. "If you explained something once to Gareth he remembered it. You didn't have to explain a second time. It all stuck there. It didn't surprise me at all that he was very interested in codes and ciphers and it didn't surprise me that he was recruited by GCHQ."

Online tributes mainly referred to his shy and quiet nature. One fellow Cambridge student, said: "He seemed a shy and quiet chap, but had a peculiarly memorable laugh and smile that are haunting me somewhat today. I knew that Gareth had gone on to work at Cheltenham but would never have imagined his life culminating in this."

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club, said he had known Mr Williams since he joined the club at the age of 17. "It's true that he was very quiet. He wasn't a great conversationalist. We were clubmates but Gareth wasn't the sort to go the pub after a race so he didn't have any close friends in the group. I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did with Gareth. It was his cycling that we knew about. A couple of times he won the club's 'best all-rounder' award."

Windsor Star : Murdered spy may have mixed with bad crowd

Murdered spy may have mixed with bad crowd

By Richard Edwards and John Bingham, The Daily Telegraph | August 27, 2010

London -- The British spy found murdered in London this week was "one of life's innocents" who could have fallen in with "unsafe" company, friends have claimed.

As police continued to draw a blank over the mysterious death of Gareth Williams, friends said he had an extraordinary mathematical mind but was "very naive about people."

There was no sign of forced entry at the flat in central London where the 31 year-old was found stuffed into a sports bag on Monday afternoon, suggesting the killer was someone Williams knew.

Detectives have been unable to find any regular friends, male or female, linked to the cipher and codes expert, who worked for MI6 and the GCHQ listening station in Cheltenham. They are investigating whether he had recently met his killer and are analyzing mobile phone sim cards found in the flat in Pimlico, central London.

Detectives are also investigating whether he lived a double life unknown to his superiors and are studying his recent movements, including a trip to Las Vegas he had described as a "real eye opener." School friends said that Williams was nicknamed "child genius." but added that he was "not a good judge of character."

Williams took a math General Certificate of Education at primary school and A Levels at 13. He graduated with a first from Bangor University by the age of 17 and earned a masters at Cambridge University. Like many prodigies, however, he struggled to make friends after being catapulted into the company of older people at an early age.

Dylan Parry, 34, a friend from his home in Anglesey, said he was an isolated child only interested in maths and computers. "He never really made friends, either his own age or from those younger than him. He didn't have any of the normal childhood interests or pursuits of teenagers.

"His only real interest was maths. He was obsessed with his subject. Socially he was very awkward but very nice."

Parry added that the spy was someone "people could easily take advantage of" and suggested the murder may have been nothing to do with his work for MI6. "Back then (in his teens) he wasn't the kind to have a girlfriend -- or a boyfriend for that matter. He was very naive about people.

"I wouldn't have thought he was a very good judge of character and it's possible he got to know someone who wasn't very safe. He was so innocent."

Geraint Williams, a math teacher at Bodedern High School, said the "exceptional" pupil had "the best brain I have ever seen."

"He was the best logician. It didn't surprise me at all that he was very interested in codes and ciphers and it didn't surprise me that he was recruited by GCHQ. He was definitely going to go into something like that with his brain."

Keith Thompson, who knew Williams through Holyhead Cycling Club, said: "I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did with Gareth."

© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star

Independent : MI6 inquiry will ask why it took two weeks to find murdered officer

MI6 inquiry will ask why it took two weeks to find murdered officer

By Terri Judd | August 27, 2010

MI6 is investigating why it took two weeks to discover that a GCHQ officer on secondment to the agency had been murdered.

Gareth Williams's body was found stuffed into a sports bag in the bath at his home in central London by Metropolitan Police officers. They forced their way into the flat on Monday afternoon after colleagues reported he had not been seen for some time.

While police and MI6 officers do not believe the 31-year-old's murder had anything to do with his work as a codes and ciphers expert, they are concerned that any agent could go missing for such a long time without checks being made on their whereabouts.

Investigators suspect Mr Williams may have known his killer as there was no sign of forced entry at his top-floor flat in a smart street in Pimlico where his neighbours included wealthy bankers and politicians, including former home secretaries Michael Howard and Lord Brittan.

Scotland Yard's Homicide and Serious Crime Command was investigating whether the victim's private life or relationships offered any clues that could identify his murderer. As a fingertip search was conducted on the property, police have been examining his telephone and financial records, as well as CCTV footage from the area. A post-mortem examination proved inconclusive and detectives are now awaiting the result of toxicology tests.

Before gaining his post at the national "listening post" Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Mr Williams would have undergone strict vetting including a nine-month process of interviews, background checks and a medical. As well as examining his family history and personal circumstances, it would assess whether he had the character for the secret world of intelligence work.

However, there were questions raised last night as to whether he may have held something back from his employers. Family and friends painted a picture of an athletic young man, a keen cyclist and runner, who was deeply private and rarely socialised.

His mother's cousin, William Hughes, said: "I knew he worked at GCHQ and he had been working in London but I didn't know what he did. It wasn't said that we shouldn't talk about it, I simply never asked and he never told me. He was a bright boy from a young age and his parents were very proud of him."

Mr Hughes added that his parents, Ian and Ellen, as well as his younger sister, Ceri, were deeply shocked and devastated by the news. His mother and father, from Wales, were picked up by police upon their return from a holiday in America on Tuesday and taken to identify his body in London.

A childhood friend, Dylan Parry, 34, described Mr Williams as academically gifted but socially naive, an isolated boy fascinated by mathematics and computers. Mr Parry, who went to school with Mr Williams at Uwchradd Bodedern secondary in Anglesey, said that he travelled to Bangor University every week aged 16 to study for a mathematics degree part-time. He later graduated from the university with a first class degree.

"It was clear he was going to go far, but we all assumed he would end up in academia. Finding out he became a spy was a shock," he added.

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club, said he had known Mr Williams since he joined the club at the age of 17. He said: "It's true that he was very quiet. He wasn't a great conversationalist. We were club mates but Gareth wasn't the sort to go to the pub after a race so he didn't have any close friends in the group. I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did with Gareth."

Charles Cumming, author of A Spy by Nature, who was approached himself for recruitment by the SIS after university, said the secretive nature of the work and the long hours could prove a real burden on relationships and many chose to mix within the services.

But he added: "I think the pressure that spies are put under has been exaggerated by programmes like Spooks. People who go into the work are highly intelligent, highly motivated and well aware of the sacrifices they are making. To a man or woman they don't find the restrictions all that difficult."

While MI6 remained an "alpha male" culture, he added, GCHQ was a very different environment.

Express : MURDERED SPY MAY HAVE MET HIS KILLER ON MISSIONS TO USA

MURDERED SPY MAY HAVE MET HIS KILLER ON MISSIONS TO USA

August 27, 2010

THE hunt for the killer of British spy Gareth Williams switched to the USA yesterday.

Grieving relatives of the MI6 code breaker revealed that he had been sent on several missions to America.

He is understood to have returned from there shortly before he was killed.

Police investigating the murder of the brilliant mathematician are trying to establish who he met in the US and if any of his contacts visited Britain recently. Scotland Yard detectives are trying to build up a picture of his private life and his movements in the month before he was killed.

They are convinced the key to the mystery lies in his personal not his professional life. His uncle Bill Hughes, of Anglesey said: “Gareth regularly flew out to the US on business. He’d be gone for a couple of weeks, maybe three, each time and he probably went out there two or three times a year for the past two years, I think. He must have got home from his last trip out there two or three weeks before he died.”

Family and friends described the spy as a man of great intellectual ability, bordering on genius, but also a loner, who was vulnerable because he was so naive. The 31-year-old was found dead on Monday afternoon stuffed in a sports bag and dumped in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London.

His body had lain there for up two weeks. Scientists are carrying out more tests after a post mortem examination proved inconclusive. Although no secret material is thought to have been stolen, detectives have not ruled out the possibility that the killer is from the intelligence world.

They believe the spy may have known his attacker and let him into the flat. However, reports that the spy was a transvestite with a secret double life have been dismissed. Mr Williams was on secondment to MI6 from the Government communications centre GCHQ. He was due back at the Cheltenham-based establishment next week.

The cycling fanatic was brought up in Holyhead, Anglesey, left school at 15 and got a first class degree from Bangor University at just 17 and then earned a PhD from Manchester University. Former teacher Geraint Williams said: “He was the best logician and the pupil with the fastest brain I have ever met.”

Dylan Parry, a childhood friend, said: “He didn’t have any of the normal childhood interests or pursuits of teenagers. He was extremely quiet.” In an internet tribute, he added: “Gareth was one of life’s innocents – so it’s hard to believe that he found himself involved in the rather exciting, and sometimes dangerous, world of espionage.”

Keith Thompson, of the Holyhead Cycling Club, said: “We were clubmates but Gareth wasn’t the sort to go to the pub after a race so he didn’t have any close friends in the group. I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did with Gareth.”

Scotsman : Spotlight on private life as spy murder mystery deepens

Spotlight on private life as spy murder mystery deepens

By John Fahey | August 27, 2010

Detectives investigating the murder of a British code-breaker were last night examining whether he lived a double life.

The spotlight was on the private life of GCHQ mathematics prodigy Gareth Williams, as investigators hunted for clues to identify his killer.

The 30-year-old's body was found stuffed into a bag in the bath of his central London government flat on Monday.

But the mystery over his final hours has since deepened after a post-mortem examination failed to identify a cause of death.

Further tests will determine if the cycling fanatic was asphyxiated or poisoned, as well as if drugs or alcohol were present in his system.

A pathologist found that Mr Williams had not been stabbed or shot and there were no obvious signs of strangulation.

Police have refused to categorise the case as a murder inquiry, despite the bizarre circumstances, as they insist he may have died innocently. One line of inquiry is that he is the victim of sex game that went wrong, and questions remain over why he was not discovered sooner.

Mr Williams was days from completing a one-year secondment to the headquarters of MI6 from his job at the national "listening post", GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

Police believe Mr Williams's body could have lain undiscovered for up to a fortnight, and it is thought he was on holiday at the time of his death. They suspect the key to the case could lie in his private life and are examining his mobile phone and financial records, as well as CCTV cameras around his home.

Investigators suspect that Mr Williams might have known his killer as there was no sign of forced entry at his top-floor flat in smart Alderney Street, Pimlico.

His home has been the subject of a fingertip search, amid fears that top-secret work material could have gone missing.

Mr Williams's parents, Ian and Ellen, travelled to London with his sister Ceri today from their home in Anglesey to speak to police and formally identify his body.

A man who answered the door of their home said: "As you can imagine, it is hard enough at the moment, and we have nothing to say."

Further details of Mr Williams continued to emerge yesterday, as friends described him as an extremely bright, quiet and determined man.

Childhood friend Dylan Parry, 34, said Mr Williams was academically gifted but socially naive and could be easily led.

Mr Parry, a volunteer at Westminster Cathedral, went to school with Mr Williams at Uwchradd Bodedern secondary in Anglesey, North Wales.

He said: "He was the kind of person who found it difficult to engage with people on a normal level.

Mr Parry added that his friend was someone "people could easily take advantage of", that he was "naive" and a poor judge of character.

Fellow cyclists, including members of clubs in Cheltenham and Holyhead, paid tribute to Mr Williams for his skills after he clocked up a series of records.

One said: "People sometimes thought he was dense because he spoke rather slowly and sometimes seemed distracted. How wrong can you get?"

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club, said:: "I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. It was his cycling that we knew about."

BBC : MI6 worker Gareth Williams was an 'exceptional' pupil

MI6 worker Gareth Williams was an 'exceptional' pupil

August 26, 2010

More tributes have been paid to Gareth Williams, the MI6 worker whose body was discovered in a holdall in his London flat.

More tests are being carried out on the body of the 30-year-old from Holyhead on Anglesey after a post mortem proved inconclusive.

Metropolitan Police are treating his death as "suspicious and unexplained".

His maths teacher Geraint Williams said Mr Williams was an "exceptional" pupil.

"He was probably not the best mathematician I have seen, but the best logician.

"If you explained something once to Gareth he remembered it, you didn't have to explain it again," said Mr Williams, a teacher at Bodedern secondary school.

"It didn't surprise me at all that he was very interested in codes and ciphers and it didn't really surprise me that he was recruited by GCHQ.

"He was definitely going to go into something like that with his brain."

Mr Williams graduated with a first class degree in maths from Bangor University at just 17 after beginning his university studies while at secondary school.

The university said in a statement it "was saddened to hear of his death and we extend our condolences to his family and friends at this very difficult time".

In 2000, he took a postgraduate certificate in mathematics at St Catharine's College, Cambridge.

Mr Williams was on a secondment to the secret intelligence service.

His body was discovered in his top floor flat in Pimlico, London on Monday.

Mr Williams' uncle, William Hughes, said his nephew never spoke about his work but he said he was "very, very talented".

Mr Hughes said: "He would never talk about his work and the family knew not to ask, really."

His father Ian, who works at Wylfa nuclear power station and lives in Valley, Anglesey, went to London after being told of the death, with his wife and daughter Ceri, who lives near Wrexham.

The police are understood to be looking into aspects of Mr Williams' personal life.

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club, said Mr Williams joined the club when he was 17.

He said: "I heard the news in a text message yesterday morning and it was a shock.

"We are totally devastated. He was a really lovely young man.

"Of course, once he moved to Cheltenham he joined the club there and we didn't see much of him."

Mr Thompson said he last saw Mr Williams at their meeting on Boxing Day.

Private life

"We were club mates but Gareth wasn't the sort to go the pub after a race so he didn't have any close friends in the group.

"I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did with Gareth.

"It was his cycling that we knew about. He was known for being very good on hill races but a couple of times he won the club's 'best all-rounder' award."

He added they had cancelled a club event on Thursday and would be getting in touch with his family to offer their condolences.

Guardian : Gareth Williams's parents identify body

Gareth Williams's parents identify body

Parents return from holiday to speak to police as picture emerges of MI6 officer as private and mild-mannered

By Sam Jones and Matthew Taylor | August 26, 2010

The grieving parents of an MI6 intelligence officer whose decomposed body was discovered in a flat in London formally identified their son's remains today, as detectives continued to search for his killer.

Gareth Williams's body was discovered in a holdall in the bath of a flat in Pimlico on Monday. Police believe he may have been dead for two weeks.

Williams, a cycling and fitness fanatic who worked at GCHQ, the eavesdropping and security centre, was days from completing a year-long secondment at MI6.

Tests are still being carried out to determine the cause of death. Initial reports that he was stabbed have been proved false. Further tests could determine whether Williams was asphyxiated, and whether drugs or alcohol were present in his system. The toxicology tests are expected to take weeks.

Williams's parents, Ian and Ellen, arrived back from holiday in Canada and America to speak to police and to identify their son's body, as a picture emerged of him as an intensely private and mild-mannered man.

William Hughes, Ellen's cousin, said: "The last time I saw Gareth was just a few months ago at a family party and he was fine. He was always a quiet person, he was from a young age."

Hughes said he had never known Williams to bring home a partner, describing him as a very private person. "I knew he worked at GCHQ and he had been working in London but I didn't know what he did. It wasn't said that we shouldn't talk about it, I simply never asked and he never told me."

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead cycling club, said Williams had joined the club at the age of 17. "He wasn't a great conversationalist. I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did with Gareth."

Dylan Parry, a childhood friend, described him as academically gifted but socially naive. "He was the kind of person who found it difficult to engage with people on a normal level," Parry, who went to secondary school with Williams in Anglesey, north Wales, told the Evening Standard. "It was clear he was going to go far, but we all assumed he would end up in academia. Finding out he became a spy was a shock."

Williams's former maths teacher, Geraint Williams, recalled how the maths genius had transferred from a primary school at Holyhead to the secondary school at the age of 10, a year earlier than usual. "I'd heard about this amazing pupil. He had done his GCSE at primary school and got a B at intermediate level. He took the higher level GCSE in a couple of months and got an A," he said.

"It was a problem for us – what could we do with him? We got him to follow A-levels and he did A-level maths and computer science in the third form. He achieved As in them. That was a big problem because he was still only 13 so we contacted Bangor University and he followed the first year of a maths degree course."

The student left school at 15 and got a first-class degree in maths at 17, and a PhD at Manchester University. His old teacher added: "He was the best logician and the pupil with the fastest brain I have ever met. You only had to say things once, that's why he was so successful. He could understand things immediately."

Investigators suspect Williams may have known his killer as there was no sign of forced entry at his top-floor flat. Detectives think the motive could lie in Williams's private life, but sources close to the inquiry said it was not clear how he had died and played down speculation that the murder was linked to his secretive line of work.

One source said: "The suggestion there is terrorism or national security links is pretty low down the list of probabilities."

Police have begun examining Williams's mobile phone and financial records as well as CCTV cameras from streets and businesses surrounding his home. His body could have lain undiscovered for up to a fortnight as he is believed to have been on leave from work.

His flat has been the subject of a fingertip search amid fears that top-secret work material could have gone missing. Officers broke down the door of his flat on Monday afternoon when attempts by government officials to locate him through his former landlady failed.

Independent : Mystery of the MI6 man who was found dead in his bath

Mystery of the MI6 man who was found dead in his bath

Neighbours describe reclusive man whose body lay undiscovered for two weeks

By Terri Judd | August 26, 2010

An unassuming and private character, Gareth Williams only ever described his work as "something to do with codes". Over the years he had grown accustomed to fading into the background. But when he repeatedly failed to turn up for work at the riverside headquarters of MI6, colleagues became so concerned that they called in Scotland Yard to open up his flat. From that point on Mr Williams' death – if not his life – was to be very public.

The scene that greeted the detectives inside the top-floor apartment of an expensive central London house was gruesome. A decomposing body had been stuffed inside a large sports holdall in the bath. Nearby, Mr Williams' mobile telephone had been laid out alongside several SIM cards.

Yesterday the 30-year-old's work as a communications officer at the intelligence "listening post" GCHQ, seconded to the Secret Intelligence Service, led to speculation that he had been brutally murdered because of his job. Was he the first spy to be killed in Britain since the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in 2006?

The reality, however, is likely to be more mundane. Sources within the murder inquiry led by the Metropolitan Police's Homicide and Serious Crime Command insisted that "the suggestion there are terrorism or national security links to this case is pretty low down the list of probabilities". They are believed to be concentrating on Mr Williams' private life.

While his body was discovered at around 4.40pm on Monday after the door to his flat was broken down, it appeared that he may have been dead for as long as two weeks. The first post-mortem examination proved inconclusive yesterday evening, though it did find that, contrary to earlier reports, he had not been stabbed.

Police have described the death as "suspicious and unexplained," and a further examination is due to be held soon to find out exactly how Mr Williams, yet to be officially identified, died. It will include toxicological analysis of his blood to test for traces of drugs or alcohol.

Both GCHQ and the Foreign Office have refused to say anything more than that it is policy not to confirm or deny the identity of any individuals working for the intelligence agencies. However, it is understood that Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command and the domestic intelligence agency MI5 are being kept up to date with the investigation.

Mr Williams normally lived near his work within the heavily secure environment of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), an intelligence agency in Gloucestershire which eavesdrops on global communications. But he had been based in a flat in London for the past year in a street populated by bankers and politicians.

In a twist befitting any spy thriller, the property in Pimlico, whose recent occupants all appeared to have Cheltenham links, was owned by a company registered in the British Virgin Islands called New Rodina – a term which means "motherland" in Russian. The well-to-do street is home to a number of distinguished residents, including former Conservative Home Secretaries Michael Howard and Sir Leon Brittan.

It is a far cry from the granny flat in Cheltenham, with its floral carpets, silk flowers and potpourri, that he was about to return to on 3 September. His landlady Jenny Elliott, 71, said he had been a perfect tenant for 10 years and she had welcomed his return when he called a fortnight ago to ask whether he could move back.

He was, she said, a fairly reclusive person, whose parents and sister had only visited once: "Gareth was a really nice and quiet man, but he didn't really seem to have much of a circle of friends. As far as I'm aware, he never bought a girl back in the 10 years I knew him... Gareth occasionally said he was 'meeting some of the guys from work for a quiet drink', but he wouldn't tell me who they were or where they were going and I never pried. "

Often she would hear him working late into the night: "All I heard was a tape recorder being rewound or listened to over and over, although he must have had his earphones in because I couldn't make out what it was."

"It's a real tragedy what's happened. Gareth was a really nice guy who was polite and mild-mannered and wouldn't hurt a fly," explained Mrs Elliott, adding: "He was a cycling fanatic and was forever off on some bike ride or another. He was an extremely intelligent person but would not talk about his job as it was a secret, on account of working for GCHQ. All he told me was it was something to do with codes."

Last night his uncle, William Hughes, from his home town of Anglesey, explained that he had not even told his family what work he was doing in London, only that he was employed by GCHQ. The news of his death was broken to his parents on holiday.

"It was a terrible shock," he said. "I got a phone call yesterday morning. I couldn't believe that such a thing had happened. At the time we didn't have any details – just that he'd been found in his flat. He was quiet, unassuming. When he came home on his weekends and holidays he'd be on his bicycle, riding around the lanes of Anglesey."

Brilliant academically, he had attended a special primary school, Mr Hughes explained. "He was a very clever lad. When he was at secondary school he would go to university one day a week." In 2000, he attended St Catharine's College, Cambridge, to undertake a notoriously demanding postgraduate certificate in advanced mathematics only open to students with first-class degrees in physics, maths or engineering, but dropped out a year later.

Yesterday, as forensics officers continued to examine the flat behind a police cordon, neighbours said Mr Williams had been a pleasant man, who kept his curtains closed so it was hard to tell whether he was in. One neighbour, Eileen Booth, 73, said detectives had called looking for information and said the murder may have taken place two weeks ago.

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club, said he had known Mr Williams since he joined the club at the age of 17.

He said: "I heard the news in a text message yesterday morning and it was a shock.

"We are a small club, only 20 members, and all of us knew Gareth.

"We are totally devastated. He was a really lovely young man.

"Of course, once he moved to Cheltenham he joined the club there and we didn't see much of him.

"I last saw him on our Boxing Day meeting last year.

"He was his usual self really.

"It's true that he was very quiet. He wasn't a great conversationalist.

"We were club mates but Gareth wasn't the sort to go the pub after a race so he didn't have any close friends in the group.

"I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did with Gareth.

"It was his cycling that we knew about. He was known for being very good on hill races but a couple of times he won the club's 'best all-rounder' award.

"He was also a good runner but that was to be expected, his whole family is very sporty.

"His father was a member of this club and Ceri was an athlete.

"We'll be getting in touch to offer our condolences when they are home.

"We have also cancelled a club event we had planned for tonight. Nobody feels up to it now."

David Hughes, from Clwb Rasio Mona, another cycling club on the island, said: "As neighbouring clubs, we used to come across each other all the time.

"Although I didn't know him personally, he was known around the cycling scene as a lovely person.

"His reputation was for hill races and he was a fine sportsman."

Sun : Murdered spook was a cross dresser

Murdered spook was a cross dresser

By ANTHONY FRANCE, JOHN KAY, GUY PATRICK and EMILY NASH | August 26, 2010

MURDERED MI6 worker Gareth Williams was a secret transvestite who may have been killed by a gay lover, detectives said yesterday.

His body lay undiscovered for TWO WEEKS after he was killed and his remains stuffed into a suitcase in his bath.

Cops found women's clothing that would fit him at his Pimlico flat in central London, a short distance from MI6's HQ beside the Thames.

Keen cyclist and brilliant former student Mr Williams was days away from completing a one-year secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, the intelligence eavesdropping base.

Police are also working on the theory that intelligence expert Mr Williams may have been killed by a foreign spy.

Spook agencies in some countries target British operatives by using good-looking agents to seduce them into giving up secrets.

And Mr Williams, 31 - found murdered at his central London home - was known to meet men in the capital's gay mecca of Vauxhall Cross and Soho in the West End.

Officers broke into his £400,000 top-floor flat in Pimlico when he failed to contact colleagues. Investigators suspect Mr Williams might have known his killer as there was no sign of forced entry.

Mr Williams' mobile phone and several SIM cards were on a table. His decomposing body was in a suitcase in the bathroom.

Further tests were taking place today to determine how the cycling and fitness fanatic met his death after a post-mortem examination was inconclusive.

Mr Williams was a middle-ranking officer at GCHQ, Britain's eavesdropping base in Cheltenham, Gloucs. But he was on secondment to MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service which gathers information about the UK's enemies.

Downing Street was monitoring developments yesterday as Scotland Yard's Homicide and Serious Crime Command probed the murder of keen cyclist Mr Williams.

The Yard's Counter Terrorism Command and the domestic intelligence agency MI5 were also being kept up to date.

As the inquiry progressed it was revealed that women's clothes that fitted Mr Williams were found at the flat.

He was thought to have been dead for two weeks. A post mortem proved "inconclusive" on the cause of death. Neighbour Laura Houghton, 30, said: "His windows were always shut and curtains were often closed."

Senior Government figures were concerned that anyone with a private life as sensitive as his could hold a post in which he could be vulnerable to blackmail.

The flat was thought to belong to the intelligence services. Ownership of the building was hidden behind a private company, New Rodina, registered in the British Virgin Islands. Rodina means "motherland" in Russian.

Public documents showed that several current and former residents of the freehold block had links to London and Cheltenham.

Mr Williams' parents Ellen and Ian and his sister Kerry, 28, who recently married, were too distressed to talk last night.

A London police officer was outside the family home in Holyhead, Anglesey, North Wales.

Mr Williams' uncle William Hughes said: "It was a terrible shock. He worked for GCHQ for many years and we knew he was in London. but he would never talk about his work."

Keith Thompson, from Holyhead Cycling Club, said he had known Mr Williams since he joined the club at the age of 17.

He said: "I heard the news in a text message yesterday morning and it was a shock.

"We are a small club, only 20 members, and all of us knew Gareth. We are totally devastated. He was a really lovely young man."

UK Wired : MI6 worker Gareth Williams was an 'exceptional' pupil

MI6 worker Gareth Williams was an 'exceptional' pupil

August 26, 2010

More tributes have been paid to Gareth Williams, the MI6 worker whose body was discovered in a holdall in his London flat.

More tests are being carried out on the body of the 30-year-old from Anglesey after a post mortem proved inconclusive.

Metroplitan Police are treating his death as "suspicious and unexplained".

His maths teacher Geraint Williams said Mr Williams was an "exceptional" pupil

"He was probably not the best mathemitician I have seen, but the best logician.

"If you explained something once to Gareth he remembered it, you didn't have to explain it again," said Mr Williams, a teacher at Bodedern secondary school.

"It didn't surprise me at all that he was very interested in codes and cyphers and it didn't really surprise me that he was recruited by GCHQ.

"He was definitely going to go into something like that with his brain."

Mr Williams graduated with a first class degree in maths from Bangor University at just 17 after beginning his university studies while at secondary school.

The university said in a statement it "was saddened to hear of his death and we extend our condolences to his family and friends at this very difficult time".

"He would never talk about his work and the family knew not to ask, really”

He went to St Catharine's College Cambridge to undertake a postgraduate certificate in mathematics in 2000 but dropped out a year later.

Mr Williams was on a secondment to the secret intelligence service.

His body was discovered in his top floor flat in Pimlico, London on Monday.

Mr Williams' uncle, William Hughes, said his nephew never spoke about his work but he said he was "very, very talented".

Mr Hughes said: "He would never talk about his work and the family knew not to ask, really."

His father Ian, who works at Wylfa nuclear power station and lives in Valley, Anglesey, went to London after being told of the death, with his wife and daughter Ceri, who lives near Wrexham.

The police are understood to be looking into aspects of Mr Williams' personal life.

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club, said Mr Williams joined the club when he was 17.

He said: "I heard the news in a text message yesterday morning and it was a shock.

"We are totally devastated. He was a really lovely young man.

"Of course, once he moved to Cheltenham he joined the club there and we didn't see much of him.

Mr Thompson said he last saw Mr Williams at their meeting on Boxing Day.

Private life

"We were club mates but Gareth wasn't the sort to go the pub after a race so he didn't have any close friends in the group.

"I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did with Gareth.

"It was his cycling that we knew about. He was known for being very good on hill races but a couple of times he won the club's 'best all-rounder' award."

He added they had cancelled a club event on Thursday and would be getting in touch with his family to offer their condolences.