The First Post : Did the Russian mafia kill MI6 agent Gareth Williams?

Did the Russian mafia kill MI6 agent Gareth Williams?
[or here]

Source claims Williams was working on system to foil Russian money-laundering

By Eliot Sefton | June 26, 2011

[and on MSN/UK]

MI6 agent Gareth Williams, who was found dead zipped into a holdall in his London flat last year, was working on technology designed to thwart money-laundering by the Russian mafia.

The claim, made by an unnamed source in the Mail on Sunday, has sparked off yet another theory about how and why the 31-year-old died: that he was assassinated by a Russian gang to stop his work in its tracks.

The source said: "He was involved in a very sensitive project with the highest security clearance. He was not an agent doing surveillance, but was very much part of the team, working on the technology side, devising stuff like software.

"A knock-on effect of this technology would be that a number of criminal groups in Russia would be disrupted. Some of these powerful criminal networks have links with, and employ, former KGB agents who can track down people like Williams."

The Russian mafia theory is just the latest in a series which have failed to explain Williams's death. At first, police were said to be working on the theory that he had died when a bondage sex game went wrong.

This was quickly questioned, with the suggestion that Williams had been murdered – and the bondage gear had been planted by his killer to throw investigators off the scent.

Next, Williams's uncle suggested that stories Williams was secretly gay, visited drag bars and had an extensive collection of designer women's dresses were indeed a smokescreen – but one planted by the government.

In January this year, it was suggest that he had died in a bizarre accident brought about when he zipped himself into the bag as part of an art project.

The Russian mafia story may be flimsy - but it's at least more credible than that outlandish theory.

Daily Mail : Did Russian mafia kill the body-in-a-bag spy? MI6 man found dead in holdall in London, was developing secret technology to track gangsters' laundered cash

Did Russian mafia kill the body-in-a-bag spy? MI6 man found dead in holdall in London, was developing secret technology to track gangsters' laundered cash

By Abul Taher and Robert Verkaik | June 25, 2011

The MI6 agent found dead in a holdall at his London flat was working on secret technology to target Russian criminal gangs who launder stolen money through Britain.

The revelation adds weight to claims that Gareth Williams was killed because of his secret work and raises the possibility that the Russian mafia has targeted British spies.

Mr Williams was found locked inside a large North Face holdall in the bath at his top-floor flat in Pimlico, Central London, on August 23 last year.

It was initially suggested that the 31-year-old died accidentally at the hands of a mystery bondage sex partner he may have met on London’s gay scene.

But now security sources say Williams, who was on secondment to MI6 from the Government’s eavesdropping centre GCHQ, was working on equipment that tracked the flow of money from Russia to Europe.

The technology enabled MI6 agents to follow the money trails from bank accounts in Russia to criminal European gangs via internet and wire transfers, said the source.

‘He was involved in a very sensitive project with the highest security clearance. He was not an agent doing surveillance, but was very much part of the team, working on the technology side, devising stuff like software,’ said the source.

He added: ‘A knock-on effect of this technology would be that a number of criminal groups in Russia would be disrupted.

‘Some of these powerful criminal networks have links with, and employ, former KGB agents who can track down people like Williams.’

Last year, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Mr Williams, a keen cyclist from Anglesey, North Wales, was involved in another ‘secretive’ project, developing devices that can steal data from mobile phones and laptops using wireless technology.

A close friend also revealed that Williams was training to take on a new identity when he died.

Tory MP and security expert Patrick Mercer said last night: ‘The revelation that Gareth Williams was involved in investigating money-laundering throughout Eastern Europe throws new light on to his death.

'I am sure the police would want to investigate these facts as thoroughly as they have done the details of his private life.’

Neither GCHQ nor the Metropolitan police would discuss the new information.

The suggestion that Mr Williams died when a sex game got out of hand was raised when investigators found he enjoyed going to drag cabaret shows, had £15,000 worth of unworn women’s designer clothing in a wardrobe at his Alderney Street home, and had visited bondage websites.

But his family reject claims that their fitness-fanatic son was gay and have been angered at the way the police allowed his private life to dominate their inquiry.

The inquest into Mr Williams’ death – which sparked several outlandish conspiracy theories – will resume in September, when as many as 40 spies who have been questioned by police could give evidence anonymously.

A battery of post-mortem tests have so far failed to determine how he died and detectives say it would have been impossible for him to lock himself inside the bag.

No evidence of drugs, alcohol or poisons has been found but police said anyone zipped inside the bag would have suffocated within 30 minutes.

Coroner Paul Knapman adjourned an inquest in February while Scotland Yard detectives await the results of a fresh round of forensic tests.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire admitted the likelihood of tracing a Mediterranean-looking couple seen at Mr Williams’s home weeks before his death is diminishing.

Since the dismantling of the Soviet Union, Russian mafia gangs have infiltrated all parts of the Russian state and its economy.

They now control vast business and property interests outside Russia which are used to launder their fortunes, often made from state corruption.

The growing threat to the West posed by East European criminal gangs was confirmed last week when a major Ukrainian hacking ring was disrupted.

The 16-strong gang had funnelled £45 million from Western banks into accounts in Cyprus and Latvia, using a computer virus called Conficker.

One British source said: ‘Much of the Russian government at various levels, national and regional, operates like a kleptocracy, with bureaucrats visibly on the take.

‘Obviously we are worried if this money is pouring into London, and then into buying property or other assets such as companies or investments.

‘The fact is that London remains the financial centre of choice for most Russians.’

London and the surrounding area has one of the largest Russian populations of any city outside the former USSR, with up to 400,000 Russians living in the South East.

The capital has been nicknamed Moscow-on-Thames and Londongrad because of its population of wealthy emigrees, including respected tycoons close to strongman premier Vladimir Putin, such as Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, as well as some of the Kremlin’s most outspoken enemies, such as the billionaire Boris Berezovsky.

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."

Merchant News : FBI joins investigation of MI6 agent death

FBI joins investigation of MI6 agent death

by Tom Chiltton | September 26, 2010

The FBI is the latest government organisation to join the manhunt for the couple linked to an MI6 agent that was found dead in a London safe house.

Using face recognition technology, the US Federal Investigations Bureau will determine if MI6 spy Gareth Williams at any point traveled to the US with a couple that fits the description of the two individuals being sought after by Scotland Yard. The couple, described as Mediterranean in appearance, is believed to have visited Williams’ flat in June or July.

Scotland Yard has, so far, not been able to locate the couple, but detectives maintain that they are vital to the ongoing inquiry. Williams’, a maths prodigy, made frequent trips to the US to the US National Security Agency in Maryland working on secondment. Williams arrived back in London from Washington on Tuesday 10 August and his body was found in his flat on 23 August. On the 15th of August, Williams was caught on camera shopping at Harrods. The MI6 agent’s funeral was held Friday and attended by MI6 head Sir John Sawers.

FBI agents have searched the flat that Williams used while working at the NSA in the States and have interviewed several of his colleagues. They have also taken steps to investigate whether or not the couple could be linked to Williams small group of friends in the States. According to US intelligence sources, so far nothing compromising has been turned up during the investigation.

Williams was a key player in a joint team operation put together by MI6, NSA and GCHQ. He was working on defence schemes for cyber attacks for both Britain and the US at the time of his death. According to one source, Williams clearance was so high, he had access to more than 30 different categories of NSA information.

UPI : Dead MI6 agent also worked in Washington

Dead MI6 agent also worked in Washington

September 25, 2010

LONDON, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- The FBI is helping British police in their investigation into the death of an intelligence analyst who had worked in the United States, officials say.

Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, the British military intelligence agency, attended Gareth Williams' funeral Friday at the Bethel Methodist Chapel in Anglesey, Wales, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Williams' body was found in his London apartment locked into a sports bag on Aug. 23. Investigators had not determined a cause of death.

Williams, 31, made several trips to the United States to work with the National Security Agency at Fort Meade in Maryland, the Telegraph said. He returned from his final trip on Aug. 10.

A couple reportedly visited Williams in London. The FBI has been using face recognition technology to determine if the couple were with Williams on any of his flights into or out of the United States.

Agents have also asked baggage handlers in Washington if they remember a bag like the one where the body was found and have searched an apartment where he stayed in the city, the Telegraph said.

Telegraph : FBI joins investigation into MI6 spy's death

FBI joins investigation into MI6 spy's death

By Gordon Thomas and Patrick Sawer | September 25, 2010

The FBI has joined the hunt for the mystery 'Mediterranean' couple linked to the death of the MI6 spy found dead in his London safe house.

The bureau has employed face recognition technology at US airports in a bid to establish whether Gareth Williams travelled in and out of the US any stage with a couple answering the description of two people Scotland Yard have appealed to come forward in connection with his death.

The couple, of 'Mediterranean' appearance, were thought to have visited Mr Williams's flat in Pimlico sometime in June or July. Scotland Yard believes the pair, in their thirties, were known to Mr Williams since neighbours do not recall buzzing them into the address.

So far no trace of the couple has been found and detectives believe they could be significant to the inquiry.

Mr Williams, a computing and maths prodigy whose funeral on Friday was attended by Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, had made regular trips to the United States, where he worked on secondment to the US National Security Agency (NSA) in Fort Meade, Maryland, helping to create defences against cyberattack on banking and infrastructure systems.

His last trip back to London from Washington was on Tuesday, August 10, following a holiday in the US. On August 15 CCTV showed him shopping at Harrods, eight days before his body was found at his flat in Pimlico.

The Sunday Telegraph understands that FBI agents have questioned baggage handlers at Washington's Dulles International Airport. None of them recall loading a large North Face holdall of the type in which Mr Williams's decomposing body was later discovered in the bath of his flat.

CCTV camera tapes at the airport have been subjected to FBI "Face Recognition" analysis to establish if Mr Williams arrived alone for his departure flight – or whether he was at any stage accompanied by the Mediterranean looking man and woman being sought by the Metropolitan Police.

Agents have also searched an apartment in the US used by Mr Williams close to the offices of the NSA, in a bid to establish if his death presents a threat to their own national security.

The 31-year-old, who had been on secondment to MI6 from the GCHQ listening centre in Cheltenham for a year, is understood to have lived in the flat while working at the NSA.

Agents have also interviewed a number of Mr Williams's colleagues and associates in the US in their attempt to discover if security has been disrupted by his death. The FBI has also checked with Internal Security at the NSA to see if the description of the couple fitted any of the small circle of friends which Williams had developed while working there.

Given his known enthusiasm for cycling the FBI has made checks along the trails through the popular Appalachian Mountains close to Washington, to see if Mr Williams had rented a bicycle in the area or travelled there during his visits.

Intelligence sources say nothing compromising has been found during either the search or the interviews, however the revelations have focused attention on Mr Williams's work in the US and his links to American security agencies.

Mr Williams is understood to have been a key member of a joint team assembled by MI6, GCHQ and the NSA at Fort Meade, where he was helping create defences for both Britain and the US against cyber attack by hostile countries.

He was given his own work station, equipped with a supercomputer with a secure link to GCHQ and MI6.

According to an intelligence source "his clearance was so high that he had access to over 30 categories of information which NSA had gathered". From Fort Meade he would also visit the Pentagon, the headquarters of the US Department of Defence.

Harry Ferguson, a former MI6 officer, said Mr Williams would have been a high-value asset if he had been recruited by a foreign agency.

It is understood that his remit at the NSA was to develop new defences that he would introduce to his post at GCHQ's Office of Cyber Security (OCS) on his return.

The FBI declined to confirm or deny whether its agents had searched Mr Williams's apartment. A spokesman at its Baltimore office, which covers the State of Maryland, said: "We don't discuss ongoing investigations."

Mr Williams's body was found in a state of advanced decomposition in the large North Face holdall, which had been padlocked from the outside and left in the bath of his flat at 23 Alderney Street, on August 23. Detectives have played down speculation that Mr Williams could have closed the padlock around the two zip handles from inside the bag. Officers are understood to believe someone else was involved in the death.

Two separate autopsies have failed to establish the cause of death and tests for other rare toxins which may evade initial examination continued last week on Mr Williams's body. A Home Office pathologist has already established that he was not stabbed, shot or strangled.

The continuing mystery over Mr Williams's death – along with the speculation, often lurid, surrounding it – has made it difficult for his parents Ian and Ellen to come to terms with the loss of their son. Mr and Mrs Williams, along with his sister Ceri, led mourners at his funeral at the Bethel Methodist Chapel in Anglesey before retreating their home in the village of Valley, overlooking the Irish Sea.

Mr Williams's uncle, William Hughes, a farmer and Plaid Cymru county councillor, said: "It's very tough for them at the moment. They are struggling to come to terms with what has happened. The fact no one yet seems to know how or why Gareth died makes it very difficult. He was a wonderful boy and Ian and Ellen were very proud of him."

WorldNetDaily : Rattled: Intel community reacts to sudden death

Rattled: Intel community reacts to sudden death

Body of computer expert found inside locked case in apartment

September 7, 2010

Whether Gareth Williams was at the wrong place at the wrong time or he was targeted by a network of foreign interests who wanted him out of their way, the government employee's death is raising alarms in the United Kingdom, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

That's primarily because of his job on the cutting edge of computer technology at the Government Communications Headquarters, a sprawling organization with its fingers in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of stealth projects.

The investigation after Williams' body was found in a large locked sports bag in the bathroom of his apartment has been unprecedented, with MI6, MI5 and Scotland Yard's murder squad on the case.

The cause of his death hasn't been confirmed, but sources report poison, shooting and knifing largely have been eliminated. The Russian SVR and the Chinese Secret Intelligence Service remain in the circle of suspicion. Some reports allege he was a double agent, and there is speculation he was killed because he refused to cooperate with foreign interests.

Staff members at GCHQ, where doors simply are marked "No Admission," have been left stunned.

Williams worked in computer technology, using his mathematical abilities in the fight against terrorism and cyber warfare. He had come into the service of his country after finishing at Cambridge.

© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Daily Mail : Was body of MI6 spy submerged in mystery fluid to speed up decay?

Was body of MI6 spy submerged in mystery fluid to speed up decay?

By Abul Taher and Ian Gallagher | September 5, 2010

The policeman who found the body of MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams said it was submerged in ‘fluid’, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

An inquest heard last week that the 31-year-old spy was padlocked in a sports hold-all and left in the bath of his two-bedroom flat in Pimlico, Central London.

But the disclosure that he was also covered by liquid – not thought to be blood or water – has raised fears that a substance was used to accelerate decay and complicate toxicology tests.

The revelation came as new details emerged of the highly sensitive nature of Mr Williams’s work.

A source said he had the highest security clearance available to an intelligence officer and was part of a secretive ‘cell’ that created devices that can steal data from mobiles and laptops.

Now, nearly two weeks after cycling enthusiast Mr Williams was found in his flat, police are apparently no nearer to learning how or when he died.

This is despite a post-mortem, a second examination and toxicology tests, the results of which might not be available for weeks.

Sources close to the inquiry say the PC who found the body described it as being in ‘fluid’ when he radioed for assistance. Detectives at the scene are understood to have used the same word in their reports.

Immediately after making the discovery at the flat, the PC said: ‘This is a murder scene.’

Mr Williams, from Anglesey, North Wales, worked as a cipher and codes expert for the Government’s eavesdropping centre GCHQ in Cheltenham.

He was on a year-long secondment to MI6 which was due to end days after he was found dead.

Police and security sources have indicated that the explanation for his death is more likely to be found in his personal life rather than his work.

But speculation that he was the victim of a professional ‘hit’ was given credence last night after further details of his work were disclosed.

‘He was involved in some very sensitive projects, known as codeword protected,’ said a security expert.

‘This meant that only the people in his cell would know what he was working on, and nobody else in his organisation.

‘You are signed in to these projects and once you finish one you are signed out and you no longer have access to any data or news about what is happening in the project.’

Mr Williams – a child prodigy who had a degree in maths at 17 and then a PhD in the subject – was part of a team that created devices which ‘hook’ on to mobiles and laptops.

‘It is an aggressive form of Bluetooth or similar wireless technology,’ said the security expert.

He said such devices would be used by spies on the ground to steal data from the handsets of unsuspecting terrorists, organised criminals or officers from rival intelligence agencies.

‘Traditionally, there has been a separation of MI6 and GCHQ,’ said the expert. ‘MI6 has been full of the James Bond types working on the ground and GCHQ is filled with boffins with beards who are doing their scientific stuff.

‘But recently there has been a merger of these agencies’ work and Williams was at the forefront of that. This was why he was on secondment to MI6.’

He added that Mr Williams did similar work when he had stints at the National Security Agency in America.

The NSA is the equivalent of GCHQ and has been leading the West’s attempts to intercept communication between Al Qaeda cells.

Mr Williams worked for the Special Delivery Team, a unit set up in the NSA to create advanced bugging and intercepting devices.

‘If you just look at Williams’s CV, you know he has worked in some of the most important data-mining centres in the UK and US. His salary is no indication of his rank,’ said the expert.

It has also emerged that before his secondment to MI6, Mr Williams worked briefly for MI5, the domestic security agency. As part of that work, he was sent to Bulgaria on a secret mission.

A source close to the investigation said that on August 23 police were asked to check on Mr Williams’s flat as he had not shown up for work. Just before 6pm, a PC went to the Georgian townhouse in Alderney Street, which has been converted into four flats on four floors. Mr Williams had the top one.

The PC could not get into the house so the letting agent, W.  A. Ellis, was called and a woman employee arrived with keys.

She hovered at Mr Williams’s door as the PC went inside. Within minutes he emerged quickly from the en suite bathroom and escorted the woman back downstairs. He then told her: ‘You stay here. This is now a murder scene.’

This weekend, staff at W. A. Ellis, of Knightsbridge, refused to confirm details. A spokeswoman said: ‘36 Alderney Street is owned by a private company, New Rodina.

‘There has been speculation that it is linked to MI6 or that it is a front for MI6. Our clients do not have any links to MI6 whatsoever and are distressed by the death of Mr Williams.’

Telegraph : Gareth Williams: 'backroom boy' spy was really a high-flier

Gareth Williams: 'backroom boy' spy was really a high-flier

The MI6 worker found dead last week was at the cutting edge of espionage technology, says Gordon Thomas

August 29, 2010

[A British spy who was found dead in the bath of a flat in London was stabbed several times before his body was stuffed into a sports bag where it lay decomposing for up to two weeks.]

The Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham is Britain’s last great secret. Now it is in the focus of intense speculation among its stunned staff. Never before has one of their own been murdered. In GCHQ’s cafés, the seating area around the lawn at the core of the doughnut-shaped building and behind anonymous doors simply marked “No admission”, the same question continues to be asked: who murdered Gareth Williams – and why?

Despite his widow’s-peak haircut and geeky smile, he worked at the cutting edge of computer technology. His mathematical brain made him a vital tool in the fight against terrorism and cyber warfare. Yet the security services are anxious to play down his role, so as not to alarm the world over his importance to anyone involved in his murder.

In 2000, Williams left his Cambridge University course in advanced mathematics because he had already learned all he could. By then, he had also been “tapped” – recruited by GCHQ scouts, who tour universities looking for talent.

No one can be certain why he signed up. It wasn’t the salary. His £40,000 a year was far less than he could have earned in industry. But it is very likely that, like so many of his young colleagues at GCHQ, he was attracted by the challenges, the excitement of working at the centre of events that he would often know about before even the Prime Minister.

Being on the inside track would also have fitted his personality. Williams was the quintessential loner. His former landlady, Jenny Elliot, 71, said last week that “his life was his work”. He was exactly what GCHQ would have wanted.

The 30-year-old bachelor loved to go cycling and keep his muscular frame in trim in the GCHQ gym – pursuits of a single man. If he ever visited Cheltenham’s bars or went on dates, he kept such socialising to himself. Within the tight-lipped GCHQ community, he obeyed the law laid down by its director, Iain Lobban, who told his staff when he took over in 2008: “Say nothing to anybody.”

When Williams joined in 2001, he found himself among the largest group of mathematicians gathered within one UK organisation, along with hundreds of cryptologists and analysts. It’s a big operation: the electricity required to run GCHQ’s supercomputers would light a small town. He became part of a world where computers were linked to storage systems, each holding a petabyte of data – eight times more than the entire word count of the British Library. Soon, he found himself working in the Super Computer Centre, developing techniques to speed up data encryption.

A former GCHQ employee recalled last week that staff would boast that when one of its female employees became pregnant, “our computers could capture the first birth cry of her baby and follow the infant through life to its death, no matter where on earth it happened”.

Gareth Williams died without leaving such a trace. Last year, his section leader had told him he was being seconded to the London headquarters of MI6. It was a further sign of his steady progress up the hierarchy at GCHQ.

In 2003, he spent six months at Menwith Hill, the ultra-secret RAF station in Yorkshire. In reality, it is a transplant of the United States; the only connection with Britain is the detachment of Ministry of Defence police that patrols the perimeter.

It was here that Williams learned how to analyse the findings from Menwith Hill’s radomes – the imposing white structures resembling gigantic golf balls that intercept coded messages from satellite communication systems, which are then broken before being sent to GCHQ for further analysis.

In 2006, Williams also spent time at Fort Meade in Maryland, home of the United States’ National Security Agency, GCHQ’s partner in global surveillance. As GCHQ gathers secret intelligence from Europe, Africa and Russia west of the Ural Mountains, NSA covers east of the mountains, including Japan and China, the Pacific and South America. As a new arrival, Williams was invited to listen to recordings of Osama bin Laden talking to his mother on his satellite phone in the aftermath of 9/11.

With his tenure at MI6 coming to an end, Williams was told that he would rejoin GCHQ in a new department, the Cyber Security Operations Centre, a team of traffic analysts tracking the threat posed by would-be cyber terrorists to Britain’s banks and infrastructure. He died before he could take up this promotion.

A further sign of Williams’s importance was that he had been assigned to live at 36 Alderney Street – a high-security apartment in Pimlico that MI6 would have previously used to debrief one of its agents or a defector. Like all safe houses, it was functionally furnished – but with a direct phone line to MI6 headquarters less than a mile away. Williams would have been cautioned about who he was allowed to entertain at home.

In the days since his body was discovered last Monday, conspiracy theorists have filled the internet with claims that Williams had been stabbed and poisoned; that he was the victim of a sex attack; that he was either homosexual or transvestite; that sado-masochistic bondage gear had been found in the flat; that he was murdered because he had threatened to expose a cabal of gays in the intelligence world. All such possibilities are being examined this weekend by MI6 and MI5 working with Scotland Yard detectives.

Investigators have already discounted a theory that Williams was killed elsewhere and brought back to the apartment in the sports bag. But they are investigating whether a second key was cut for the apartment; locksmiths across London are being checked. CCTV footage at nearby Victoria station, as well as other London railway terminals, is under review for images of Williams returning from a recent holiday. He is known to have been back in London since August 11, and that a sighting was made on August 15 – one of the few details police have released.

As well as having trouble gathering evidence, police are finding it difficult to discover the exact nature of Williams’s work. They have been briefed that, despite earlier denials, it “impinged on national security”.

An intelligence officer close to the investigation confirmed: “He was not just a cog in the wheel. He had an important part in making the wheel go round.”

On Tuesday, a second post-mortem will be held: an initial post-mortem proved inconclusive, ruling out stabbing or shooting, with toxicology results still pending. I have been told that the Home Office forensic pathologist will be looking for evidence that Williams was neither stabbed nor poisoned, but smothered to death.

Dr Fawzi Renomran, the London-trained pathologist who conducted the autopsy on the body of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Hamas terrorist who was killed in Dubai earlier this year, concluded that he had been smothered by a Mossad hit team. “It was a difficult form of murder to prove,” he said.

But, apart from Mossad, there are other intelligence services with experts in murder by smothering. They include the Russian SVR and the Chinese Secret Intelligence Service. Terrorist groups are also known to have used the method.

Until the next autopsy report becomes public, those two key questions – who murdered Gareth Williams, and why? – will continue to echo around GCHQ.

Daily Mail : GENIUS WHO CRACKED THE TALIBAN'S CODES

GENIUS WHO CRACKED THE TALIBAN'S CODES [scroll down]

By JASON LEWIS AND CHRISTOPHER LEAKE | August 29, 2010

Gareth Williams played a key role in the world’s most sensitive and secretive electronic intelligence gathering system – leading to new fears about the serious national security implications of his death.

Mr Williams was a top-level cryptologist helping to oversee a network called Echelon, which links satellites and super-computers in Britain and the US with those of other key allies.

Set up to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Echelon now eavesdrops on terror suspects and drug dealers, and searches for other political and diplomatic intelligence.

It reputedly intercepts five billion conversations and other forms of communications every day.

Echelon looks for key words and phrases that might suggest, for example, that a terrorist attack is being planned.

Mr Williams’s expertise in his field is reflected by the fact that he had been posted to MI6’s key listening station in Afghanistan, and had been sent to Fort Meade, in Maryland, home of the US National Security Agency.

He is also thought to have visited the NSA cryptology centres at San Antonio, Texas, and at Denver, Colorado.

It is understood Mr Williams was part of a team of maths geniuses trying to adapt the 40-year-old Echelon system to deal with new forms of electronic communications.

According to sources, one of the big issues Mr Williams was working on was how the security and intelligence agencies can monitor internet telephone calls – known as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) – such as Skype, which are being used by terrorists and foreign agents to try to circumvent routine eavesdropping on telephone and mobile networks.

It is understood he was also involved in refining the sophisticated algorithms which determine the key words and phrases the system is looking for as it monitors conversations taking place around the world.

Mr Williams’s death is likely to be a major blow to GCHQ’s efforts to crack VOIP.

Two years ago Britain’s Intelligence and Security Committee, which oversees the work of Britain’s spies, revealed: ‘One of the greatest challenges for GCHQ is to maintain its intercept capability in the face of rapidly evolving communications technology.

‘This relates in particular to the growth in internet-based communications and voice over internet telephony.’

The scope of his role was last night reinforced by the revelation that Mr Williams did at least two tours to Afghanistan, helping to break coded Taliban messages.

He was sent to MI6’s station in Kabul twice in 2008, according to Ministry of Defence sources.

His code-breaking work is thought to have helped save the lives of scores of British soldiers under daily attack from insurgents.

Mr Williams would have studied the coded language of Taliban leaders planning to attack British and other NATO patrols and, in some cases, discover the location of those who sent the messages.

Among the favourite warning codes used by insurgents to set up their attacks are ‘big wedding’, ‘getting married’ and ‘birthday party’.

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

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

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

By Ian Gallagher And Abul Taher | August 29, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Manchester Evening News : Professor who helped death riddle spy get job at MI6

Professor who helped death riddle spy get job at MI6

Yakub Qureshi | August 28, 2010

The professor who helped death-riddle MI6 man Gareth Williams begin his intelligence career has told of his shock at the tragedy.

Gareth, whose body was found stuffed inside a bag at his flat, gained a PhD in computer game technology at Manchester University. Prof Terry Hewitt has described how he helped the ‘exceptional’ maths scholar secure his first job with the government’s codebreaking agency, GCHQ.

Prof Hewitt, who now works for Bangor University, told the MEN: “He came into my office one day and said ‘I’m going to GCHQ’. He had to tell me as I was his referee for his vetting. MI5 eventually got hold of me and examined me about him.

“He worked very well. He was clearly a very able student. He came to us at the age of 18 – four years younger than most postgraduate students.

“He was modelling how light reflects on surfaces. His knowledge of maths skills and computing techniques would make him attractive to them.”

His PhD thesis, entitled ‘Methods for Global Illumination Models’, examined how light and shade could be replicated in computer games.

The subject involved the study of complex mathematical calculations and advanced computer technology.

Prof Hewitt, a computer graphics expert who left Manchester in 2008, added that Mr Williams – whose mysterious death has sparked fears over possible security breaches – was friendly but ‘reserved’ with staff and fellow students.

He said: “Everything that was said about him was true, He was interested in cycling.

“He was very private and worked well on his own. He was certainly not a ‘geek’ but was reserved is the best description. I thing that reserve came about because he was so much younger than other students around him.

“I was shocked when I heard the news. He was an exceptionally gifted student and very talented.”

Mr Williams, originally from Anglesey, gained special permission to leave school for university aged just 15.

After completing his degree at Bangor University while still living with his parents, he moved to Manchester in 1997.

Mr Williams signed up for the Cheltenham-based GCHQ, which employs 5,000 people to intercept and break coded international communications, just after beginning a post-doctoral qualification at Cambridge, and dropping out of the course.

Officials have confirmed that he had been working for MI6 for the past year, following a secondment from GCHQ.

It is believed the intelligence worker lay dead for two weeks before being found, although there were no signs of forced entry to the flat.

Post-mortem tests have so far proved inconclusive.

The investigation has now turned to the intelligence worker’s private life.

Metropolitan Police have yet to describe the death as a murder, with one line of inquiry that the may have died as a result of a botched sex game.