London Evening Stardard : End our agony: Plea of family of spy in the bag Gareth Williams

End our agony: Plea of family of spy in the bag Gareth Williams

Kiran Randhawa | April 20, 2012

The grieving family of the MI6 spy found dead in a locked bag broke their silence today as they called for their agony to be brought to an end.

Relatives of Gareth Williams said they still felt “very raw” and demanded to be told the truth about his death, which they are convinced was murder.

The GCHQ codebreaker’s naked and decomposing body was found in a holdall in the bath of his Pimlico flat in August 2010. The family hope his inquest, which begins on Monday, will help to end their suffering and at last give them some answers. More than 18 months on, police are still unable to explain what happened to the talented 31-year-old mathematician and recently revealed that their investigation has been hampered by blunders.

His aunt Judith Thomas, from the village of Trearddur Bay in Anglesey, North Wales, said: “We could fill newspapers with words to describe Gareth. You couldn’t find enough paper in this world to say how we feel about him. It’s a distressing time for us, especially with the inquest starting.”

Her husband Dafydd said: “Our feelings are still very raw. This was not a body in a bag — he was our nephew, a wonderful young man.” At a pre-inquest review, the family’s barrister told how they believe that he was murdered by a member of “some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services”.

Another uncle, William Hughes, 62, a councillor from Bodedern, said the family were keen to see the end of the five-day hearing at Westminster coroner’s court.

He said: “We just want all of this over and done with now.” The coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, is considering ordering a live demonstration at the inquest.

This may involve a police expert getting into an identical bag to see whether Mr Williams could have climbed into the holdall by himself.

Foreign Secretary William Hague this month ordered that key evidence must be heard in secret. He signed an order to prevent the disclosure of details about the spy’s work with both British and US secret services. The Foreign Office said: “It was right to seek a public interest immunity certificate. We would always seek to protect the identities of intelligence personnel and details of their operational work.”

Mr Williams is reported to have been sent to the National Security Agency — the Pentagon’s listening post — to work on encryption programmes that filter millions of communications every day.

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.”

Toronto Star : How U.K. spy’s body ended up inside sports bag mystifies experts at inquest

How U.K. spy’s body ended up inside sports bag mystifies experts at inquest

David Stringer | Associated Press | April 30, 2012

LONDON—Traces of at least two unknown people were discovered at the London apartment of a British spy whose naked body was found locked inside a sports bag, a forensic expert told a hearing Monday.

Ros Hammond said DNA from two as yet unidentified people had been found inside the home, and that tests still being conducted could provide a breakthrough in the case, which has so far baffled investigators.

Gareth Williams, 31, worked for Britain's secret eavesdropping service GCHQ but was attached to the MI6 overseas spy agency when his remains were found in August 2010 at his London apartment inside the bag, and placed in a bathtub.

A London inquest hearing has been told that Williams rarely invited guests into his government-provided apartment, but Hammond said scientists had uncovered possible evidence of visitors.

“There's certainly evidence of at least two people other than Mr. Williams on the samples tested,” Hammond told Westminster Coroner's Court.

She said DNA evidence on a towel was still being examined and could provide a clue to explain Williams' puzzling death. “There's hope,” she said. “The tests are still in progress and there may be some promising results.”

Police say they are not certain exactly how Williams died and have so far made no arrests, although a senior detective has told the inquest she believes that at least one other person must have been involved.

Officers have suggested Williams' death may have had links to his private life and an apparent interest in sadomasochism — possibly during a sexual encounter gone awry. His relatives, however, insist his demise must be related to his highly secret work.

Pathologists told the hearing that poisoning or asphyxiation may have killed Williams, but acknowledged they can't be certain of the exact cause of his death because his cadaver badly decomposed as it lay undiscovered for several days.

MI6 colleagues failed to report Williams as missing for a week, meaning that police and pathologists lost vital chances to gather evidence.

Pathologist Benjamin Swift told the inquest that radiators had been turned on inside Williams' apartment — even though it was summer — accelerating the decomposition of his body.

Asked whether Williams may have been poisoned or suffocated, Swift said the options “were certainly two of the more prominent” explanations for the cryptology expert's death.

“I would never say never but those are the foremost contenders,” he told the hearing.

Pathologist Richard Shepherd, who carried out the third of three autopsies on Williams, said it appeared certain the spy climbed into the bag voluntarily.

It was more likely that Williams “was alive when he entered the bag than that he was dead,” the told the hearing.

Shepherd said it would have been very difficult to place Williams' dead body inside the duffel bag in the position it was found in. He was discovered in the fetal position with his arms folded across his chest.

There were also no signs that the spy had struggled to free himself.

“Were he to be alive and struggling I would anticipate there to have been injuries,” Shepherd said.

A verdict from the inquest is expected Wednesday.

[video] ITV: Wales This Week: Death Of A Spy

Wales This Week: Death Of A Spy

ITV panel including Miles Goslett and Gordon Thomas | April 17, 2012

Daily Mail : Hague orders 'body in a bag' spy evidence to be heard in secret so MI6 agent's work in U.S cannot be reported

Hague orders 'body in a bag' spy evidence to be heard in secret so MI6 agent's work in U.S cannot be reported

By Robert Verkaik | April 7, 2012

William Hague has ruled that key evidence in the ‘body-in-the-bag’ inquest into the death of an MI6 officer be heard in secret.

The Foreign Secretary signed an order prohibiting disclosure about details of the agent’s work with the British and US secret services.

The case has reignited the debate over secret justice and Government attempts to hold some inquests behind closed doors.

Gareth Williams, 31, who worked for the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, was found dead in a sports bag in the bath of his flat 18 months ago amid claims he had been murdered by another country’s spies.

But Mr Hague, who has departmental responsibility for MI6, has signed a public interest immunity certificate authorising the withholding of details about his secret work, including joint operations with the American secret services.

A source close to the case said that the coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, has backed Mr Hague’s decision and the Government’s bid to keep the evidence secret. ‘The coroner was favourable to the arguments raised by the Government lawyers,’ the source said.

At a secret hearing nine days ago, lawyers for MI6 – which is headed by Sir John Sawers – told Dr Wilcox that the disclosure of details about Mr Williams’s work could harm Britain’s national interest.

Mr Williams, who is believed to have worked closely with the American security services, had flown to the National Security Agency (NSA) – the Pentagon’s listening post – on several occasions and returned from his last trip to the US only weeks before his death in Pimlico, Central London.

At the secret hearing, MI6 lawyers cited the case of Binyam Mohamed, the former Guantanamo Bay detainee paid £1million compensation by the last Labour Government. It settled that case rather than publish secret material the US government had given in confidence to the Security Service, MI5.

But the case raised questions about whether Britain was using its intelligence relationship with the US to keep secret details about UK involvement in the American torture programme.

Last night, Geoffrey Robertson QC, who acted for the New York Times and Washington Post in the Binyam Mohamed case, compared the legal situation in the Williams inquest with Mohamed’s. He called for the Williams case to be opened up to greater public scrutiny, adding: ‘These documents [about Williams’s work] may be necessary to show how and why this man died.

‘The open justice principle in British law is based on [legal reformer] Jeremy Bentham’s insight that publicity is very good for justice as it “keeps the judges, while trying, under trial”.

‘Coroners are not judges and sometimes their decisions can be dreadful. It is essential that this coroner’s ruling be made public so that we can decide whether she is applying the proper principles and so the public can be confident she is taking the correct approach to this case – and is not being overawed by the over-suppressive Government arguments.’

Mr Williams, one of GCHQ’s codebreakers, is reported to have been sent to the NSA to work on encryption programmes that filter millions of communications every day. In 2010, the FBI was called in to investigate Mr Williams’s death as a possible NSA security compromise.

A source in the Williams case said the coroner’s ruling has been communicated to the Government, but suggested it might not be made fully public. A spokesman for the coroner declined to say whether the judgment would be made fully public but said: ‘The coroner is yet to make a full ruling on any anonymity and public interest immunity.’

The Foreign Office said: ‘It was absolutely right and appropriate to seek a public interest immunity certificate. We would always seek to protect the identities of intelligence personnel and details of their operational work.’

Police have confirmed that the investigation is continuing and have not ruled out murder.

Daily Mail : Did MI6 'dry clean' this flat to cover up the spy in a bag murder? Not one fingerprint and five missing hours before police called

Did MI6 'dry clean' this flat to cover up the spy in a bag murder? Not one fingerprint and five missing hours before police called

By Paul Bracchi and Chris Greenwood | April 6, 2012

The secret service slang for having removed or destroyed incriminating evidence such as fingerprints from the scene of a crime is ‘dry-cleaned.’

It is a phrase now being used frequently in connection with the case of MI6 spy Gareth Williams, whose body was found locked in a sports bag at his home 20 months ago. The question being asked in law enforcement circles is, was the flat where he lived ‘dry-cleaned’ before police even arrived?

Detectives working on the case — one of the most mysterious and baffling of recent times — are convinced it was, in order to cover up the truth: that a colleague was involved in his death.

The chain of events that led to this sinister conclusion, we have been told, began on the evening of Sunday August 22, 2010, when Mr Williams had arranged to meet up with his sister Ceri.

They had planned to go to a comedy club in the capital. Mr Williams didn’t turn up. Ceri rang her brother’s mobile. He didn’t answer. She tried him at home. He didn’t pick up the phone there, either.

Had he been a banker, say, or in advertising, she might not have alerted his ‘employers’.

But for the past year, he had been working for the secret service — recently qualifying for operational deployment — on secondment from GCHQ, the Government’s listening post in Cheltenham.

So the next morning, she rang mi6. She informed the human resources department of Gareth’s non-appearance the previous evening, adding that his behaviour was totally out of character.

The call was made at 11am. At 4pm, MI6 got in touch with Scotland Yard and officers were dispatched to check on Mr Williams at his flat in Alderney Street in Pimlico.

He was too late. Gareth Williams, 31, was dead, curled up naked in the foetal position inside a red North Face holdall, which had been padlocked from the outside and placed in his bath. The bathroom itself, as you can see from the first photographs taken inside the apartment, is windowless. It adjoins the master bedroom.

Why had it taken MI6 five hours to contact Scotland Yard? Detectives are in little doubt. ‘The suspicion is that MI6 went round, found him dead and did a pretty damn good “dry-cleaning” job before we even knew about it,’ an impeccable source with full knowledge of the 20-month police investigation told the Mail this week.

The forensic team found no trace of any fingerprints, apart from those belonging to Mr Williams. No DNA, apart from his. Nothing to suggest anyone had ever been inside the apartment, apart from him. It was as if he had been living in an hermetically-sealed bubble.

MI6 would have had no difficulty gaining access to the flat. They had a key to the front door. It was a secret service ‘safe house’, after all, just a mile from MI6 headquarters on the other side of the River Thames (barely five minutes away by car) and was registered to a company in the British Virgin Islands.

The controversy surrounding the death of Gareth Williams was ignited at a pre-inquest hearing last week, when his family claimed there had been a cover-up involving the ‘dark arts’ of the ‘secret services’. The Mail has been told that the police share that view. It is an opinion, no doubt, that will be forcefully expressed at the full inquest next month.

Among the few facts that seem to be beyond dispute is that whatever may have occurred at 36 Alderney Street, Mr Williams was not alone when he died. Someone else must have been present, because the bag in which he was found could not have been locked from the inside.

This was the verdict of an expert in rescuing people from confined spaces — hired by the police — who got into a similar bag to test whether it was possible. He found that it wasn’t.

The question is: was the ‘third party’ taking part in a sex game with Mr Williams which ended in tragedy? Or was he murdered because of his espionage work?

Mr Williams — a Welsh speaker raised in Anglesey, North Wales, by father Ian, who worked at a nuclear power plant, and mother, Ellen — has been described as ‘quiet and unassuming’ by everyone who knew him. Until he was ‘loaned’ to MI6, he lived, without a TV, in the annexe of an elderly couple’s home in Cheltenham, where he had been a code-breaker at GCHQ for the past decade. His only interest seemed to be cycling.

A more complex picture of his private life emerged after his death. Most relevant in the circumstances, perhaps, was evidence he had visited bondage websites on his computer.

Much has been made of the fact that these possible sexual tastes may have led to his death, but do they deflect suspicion from the secret service?

Where would a man with limited social contacts have met someone to share these interests, if not at work? Where else can a spy look for safe company, if not among other spies? Police believe this is the most likely scenario: that Gareth Williams and a colleague (maybe even a senior colleague) were engaged in a bizarre sexual game that went terribly wrong.

It was covered up, so this theory goes, to prevent an even bigger scandal in MI6, one that might have left a fellow agent facing possible manslaughter charges.

The exact cause of Mr William’s death is still unknown. The heat generated inside the holdall meant his body was in a heavily decayed state when it was discovered.

He may have died from asphyxiation or hypercapnia, a catastrophic build-up of carbon dioxide in the blood. He might have climbed into the synthetic rubber sports bag voluntarily or he could have been unconscious when placed there.

Gareth Williams, like all members of the security services, would have undergone strict vetting before being recruited. For MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, officers are required to have the highest clearance of all. Developed Vetting, it is called, a nine-month process of interviews and background checks into his family history and personal circumstances.

A prediliction for sexual peccadillos would have almost certainly been picked up. The process is not foolproof, but it is highly effective.

Mr Williams’s family and friends insist he has been smeared to deflect attention from the real story. Contrary to early claims, no bondage equipment was ever found in Alderney Street and the only evidence of his interest in bondage is contained on his computer.

Is it possible that his laptop might have been tampered with when his flat was ‘dry-cleaned?’ Police believe that whoever cleaned up the flat deliberately left the laptop on the dining room table for them to find, along with his mobile phones and SIM cards, all neatly laid out.

‘It was just too easy for us to find these things,’ said the source.

There is at least one notorious precedent (that we know of) for a secret-service-inspired smear campaign against one of its own agents. It is the case of Jonathan Moyle, another British intelligence agent, who was found hanging by his shirt from the rail in a walk-in wardrobe, with a pillow case over his head, in the Chilean capital Santiago in 1990.

MI6 planted the suggestion he had died while engaged in an auto-erotic act. In fact, Moyle had probably been drugged, suffocated, injected with a lethal substance, then strung up — a view supported by the British coroner, who returned a verdict of unlawful killing at his inquest eight years later, following a campaign by Mr Moyle’s father, Tony.

His son was investigating the arms trade with Iraq, which was then the subject of an arms embargo which prevented Britain from selling weapons to the country. ‘British companies were arming Saddam Hussein and British ministers were well aware they were doing so,’ Mr Moyle said at the time.

Those responsible for the death have never been brought to justice.

The parallels with Gareth Williams are chilling. If he was murdered, the reason almost certainly lies somewhere in his professional life. Many workers at GCHQ spend their time trawling through emails, text messages and telephone calls, looking for that one communication that might prove crucial. They seek intelligence on a wide range of targets, including terrorists, organised criminals and hostile foreign governments.

Gareth Williams, it seems, was no ordinary GCHQ operative. Hence his deployment to MI6. He was working on equipment, it has been claimed, that tracked the flow of money from Russia to Europe.

The Russian secret services have shown themselves willing to act without restraint and strike at the heart of Britain. Relations with Moscow sunk to their lowest point since the Cold War in the wake of the murder of former agent Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. He was poisoned with radioactive plutonium, prompting a murder inquiry that implicated Russia.

The following year, a gunman from Russia was arrested at the Park Lane Hilton on a mission to murder oligarch Boris Berezovsky. He and Litvinenko were outspoken critics of the Russian government. In other words, they were seen as a threat.

Might Gareth Williams also have been viewed as a threat, albeit for very different reasons?

Crispin Black, a former intelligence officer and adviser to the Government and the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), is convinced Mr Williams was murdered by foreign agents.

‘It has always looked like a professional affair: people with experience in “wet jobs’’ [KGB slang for murder and assassination] either working for a foreign intelligence agency or a criminal enterprise,’ he says.

‘Go with the facts. The body is in the bag because it is going somewhere and it’s in the bath because once it has been removed it is easy to destroy any forensic residue. For some reason the disposal of the body was interrupted — but the killer or killers knew what they were doing.’

Why would MI6 cover up Mr Williams’s murder? Maybe it wants to conceal the identity of a country or group that killed him to serve some diplomatic end, like in the case of Jonathan Moyle.

Or was it to spare them the embarrassment of having one of its agents killed in a ‘safe house’, in the shadow of the secret service headquarters?

Officers on the case still prefer the ‘sex game’ theory. Meanwhile, at their bungalow in the village of Valley, on the west coast of Anglesey, the parents of Gareth Williams are keeping a dignified silence.

‘It has been a very distressing time for us,’ is all his mother Ellen would say when contacted this week.

Indeed, the past few days couldn’t have been more distressing with the countless unanswered questions still surrounding the death of her son.

‘The family have deep concerns as to whether the inquest will ever get to the bottom of what happened,’ said Anthony O’Toole, the barrister who represents the Williams family.

‘We know that there was somebody in the flat — that is beyond dispute.’

Independent : Scotland Yard apologises over spy 'errors'

Scotland Yard apologises over spy 'errors'

Tom Morgan | April 3, 2012

Scotland Yard apologised today for "administrative errors" during investigations into the mysterious death of an MI6 spy found in a holdall.

The force said it was responsible for giving a coroner three names for the same witness ahead of the inquest into the death of Gareth Williams.

Elizabeth Guthrie is expected to be questioned about her contact with Mr Williams in the months before his death when the hearing gets under way later this month.

But Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox told a pre-inquest review last week that "there has been some confusion" over her identity.

The Metropolitan Police Service moved to clarify the situation in a statement.

It said: "For the avoidance of doubt, the MPS would like to make it clear that Miss Guthrie has assisted the police investigation at every stage.

"Regarding the issue of the spelling of her name, the MPS would also like to clarify that this was not caused by Miss Guthrie but was a result of administrative errors when her statements were taken.

"Furthermore, at no point did Miss Guthrie ask the MPS to represent her views in this matter to the media.

"The MPS would like to apologise to Miss Guthrie, her family, and HM Coroner for any confusion that has been caused."

Miss Guthrie had been listed as Miss Gunther, Misa Guseiri and Elizabeth Guthrie in separate statements sent to Westminster Coroner's Court.

News of the error comes after the force also revealed a key line of its inquiries had been an 18-month DNA mix-up.

Forensic teams mistakenly flagged up a spot of DNA on Mr Williams's hand in 2010 - before realising just two weeks ago that it matched a scientist on the crime scene, the force told the review.

Family members of Mr Williams believe secret agents specialising in the "dark arts" hold the key to solving the death riddle.

Relatives believe a third party was either present when Gareth Williams died or broke into his home afterwards to destroy evidence, lawyer Anthony O'Toole last week's pre-inquest review.

Mr O'Toole said: "The impression of the family is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services - or evidence has been removed post-mortem by experts in the dark arts."

The inquest is due to begin on April 23.

The Week : Death of a GCHQ code-breaker: no wonder his family smell a rat

Death of a GCHQ code-breaker: no wonder his family smell a rat

Gareth Williams's family are right – this has always looked like the work of a meticulous professional killer

Crispin Black | April 2, 2012

THE pre-inquest review held in London last week into the mysterious death of the GCHQ code-breaker Gareth Williams, whose body was found in a locked holdall in his Pimlico flat in August 2010, has thrown up a number of new and surprising twists.

The most startling is that the single unexplained DNA sample recovered from Williams's hand and which the police felt was a significant lead for nearly 18 months turns out to come from one of the forensic scientists who attended the scene – a labelling cock-up by the forensic laboratory, apparently.

The lawyer representing Williams's family, Anthony O'Toole, also suggested that there were no signs of covert entry into the flat but an expert despatched to examine the door discovered that it had already been removed from its frame, complete with locks.

No wonder the family are smelling a rat. They like just about everyone else reject the Houdiniesque theory that Williams somehow locked himself into the small holdall and are convinced that a third party must have been present in the flat even though no unexplained DNA or fingerprints have been discovered.

O'Toole put it this way on the family's behalf: "The impression of the family is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services – or evidence has been removed post-mortem by experts in the dark arts."

The Williams family's instincts look spot on. It has always looked like a professional affair: people with experience in "wet jobs" - the KGB slang for murder and assassination - either working for a foreign intelligence agency or a criminal enterprise.

Getting into someone's house to have a look around and then getting out again without leaving any trace is much more difficult than the Bond films would have us believe. It requires long training and then meticulous attention to detail, invariably against the clock.

Unless the individual or team is very skilled they will usually leave some small sign of their presence – a book placed back on a shelf out of order or some tiny forensic trace like a hair or a piece of dried skin. Killing someone without leaving any tracks is even more difficult. That forensic and other evidence may eventually lead the police nowhere is a fact of life. That there is no forensic evidence at the scene at all suggests a high level of skill and coolness of mind by the perpetrators.

In the Williams case, truth seems stranger than fiction. But we can glean some clues from the world of fiction - in particular the locked room or impossible-crime detective story. Out of fashion these days, it was once all the rage. Conan Doyle's only specimen, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, is consistently voted the best of all the Sherlock Holmes stories and Agatha Christie's And Then there Were None is the best-selling detective novel ever.

The key to both tales and indeed all impossible-crime cases in a locked room is that however complicated, bizarre and unlikely the circumstances, the explanation is always simple. In some way the room was not locked at all. The most popular tricks are secret passages or sliding panels or a poison administered earlier. A less common device but one found in a number of golden age novels and short stories is the "unhinging and rehinging of a door or windows". Quite.

We may never know how Gareth Williams died. But we do know about the leisurely pace and Janet and John blunders of the investigation so far. More energy is required – perhaps the full inquest which starts on 23 April will kick-start the process.

Independent : 'Spy in a bag' may have been executed by secret agents, coroner hears

'Spy in a bag' may have been executed by secret agents, coroner hears

Dirty tricks may mean killers will never face justice

Kim Sengupta | March 31, 2012

An MI6 officer whose body was found in a holdall may have been executed by secret agents specialising in the "dark arts", with a cover-up subsequently organised to ensure that his killers did not face justice, a court heard yesterday.

The highly charged allegations came at a coroner's hearing which was also told it was virtually impossible for Gareth Williams to have locked himself inside the bag, but that the hunt for those who may have killed him was sidetracked by a major forensic blunder.

The mix-up, over DNA found on the body, was discovered only two weeks ago – while the investigation into one of the most high-profile spy cases of recent times has been going up a blind alley for the best part of a year.

Westminster Coroner's Court in London was also told that MI6 (the Secret Intelligence Service) had not checked on Mr Williams's whereabouts for more than a week, even though he had failed to turn up for work. As a result, his remains were so decomposed and contaminated that scientists had been unable to ascertain the cause of death.

Anthony O'Toole, representing Mr Williams's relations, told the court: "The impression of the family is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services – or evidence has been removed post mortem by experts in the dark arts."

Mr O'Toole said Mr Williams "could have been actively deployed" as an agent up to five months before his death. There was a "bland statement" from MI6 "that the death was nothing to do with his work", said the lawyer. "To properly explore the circumstances of the death, we need to establish the deceased's work," he added.

Mr Williams worked as a cipher and codes expert for GCHQ, the Government listening station, but had been on secondment with MI6 since March 2010. His body was found at his flat in Pimlico, south-west London, in August 2010 in a North Face holdall sealed by a padlock.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire told the court that traces of DNA found on one of Mr Williams's hands were previously been regarded as a "key line of inquiry". But it subsequently emerged that "actually the DNA evidence was contamination by a scientist at the scene".

The laboratory responsible, LGC Forensics, last night apologised to Mr Williams's family. "LGC identified the partial profile as matching that of a Metropolitan Police scientist who was involved in the original investigation," a spokeswoman for the company said.

The coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, said: "What I am concerned about is that there is a system in placed to detect the error. Human errors will always occur.

"There has been so much public speculation and so much public anxiety that this is the reason the court has to act to address it."

Mr Williams's family, said Mr O'Toole, was concerned a third party who may have been present at his death has still not been traced. There was the DNA evidence which turned out to be contaminated and also, supposedly, a footprint. But both leads had come to "dead ends".

Examination of a door knob which may have provided incriminating material could not be carried out because the expert tasked with doing so found the door had been removed and the knob taken out, said the lawyer.

The inquest into Mr Williams's death, expected to begin in April, will hear from his colleagues at MI6 (who will give evidence anonymously) and GCHQ, toxicology experts, bag experts, as well as from his sister. It will also hear that he may have died after breathing too much carbon dioxide.

Dr Wilcox said she wanted the circumstances of Mr Williams's death to be re-enacted in court. "I want it demonstrated in court how somebody could have got into the bag, done it up and locked it from outside when confined inside. It's the fundamental issue in this case: whether Gareth Williams was able to lock the bag when he was inside."

But Vincent Williams, representing Scotland Yard, held there was no need for such a demonstration. A panel of experts had concluded it "would have been very difficult, if not impossible" for him to lock the bag from the inside.

Timeline: The mysterious death of Gareth Williams

15 Aug 2010

31-year-old Gareth Williams, a cipher and codes expert who worked at the GCHQ listening post in Cheltenham, is seen alive for the last time.

23 Aug 2010

A colleague at GCHQ reports Williams missing. His body is found later that day at his flat in Pimlico, London.

30 Aug 2010

Detectives say they are looking at whether Williams may have been killed by a foreign intelligence agency.

1 Sept 2010

An inquest hears that Williams's remains were discovered padlocked into a sports bag, which was in an empty bath at his flat.

6 Sept 2010

Police appeal for help in tracing a couple of Mediterranean appearance, pictured left, who were seen entering Williams's flat earlier in the summer.

22 Dec 2010

Police reveal that Williams had accessed bondage websites and visited a drag show, amid suggestions that the death could have been the result of a sex game gone wrong.

March 2012

After 18 months of investigation, police discover that a trace of DNA found on Williams's hand came from a crime scene scientist. They also find that the couple they were tracing were irrelevant to the inquiry.

Daily Mail : The woman with THREE identities who could hold key to death of the body-in-the-bag spy

The woman with THREE identities who could hold key to death of the body-in-the-bag spy [or here]

American Missa Elizabeth Guthrie claims to be an international businesswoman linked to a wealthy American family

By Robert Verkaik, George Arbuthnott and Sharon Churcher | March 31, 2012

The Mail on Sunday can today identify a mysterious new witness who could hold the key to the death of the body-in-a-bag MI6 spy Gareth Williams.

The woman used three different names in statements provided to police for a pre-inquest hearing into the death of code-breaker Mr Williams.

This provoked Dr Fiona Wilcox, the coroner investigating the case, to declare: ‘There has been some confusion as to who this witness is and I need to know her identity.

‘I expect witnesses to identify who they are, not who they think they are.’

Our investigation has revealed the woman to be 27-year-old American Missa Elizabeth Guthrie, who claims to be an international businesswoman linked to a wealthy American family worth £35 billion.

The full inquest into Mr Williams’s death is due to be held later this month and Westminster coroner Dr Wilcox is now expected to quiz Ms Guthrie about the time she spent with Mr Williams in 2010.

Dr Wilcox said on Friday: ‘She [Ms Guthrie] will be asked to explain who she is and called to give evidence.’

The coroner said that there were a number of questions she wanted to ask Ms Guthrie about her identities, which were previously given as Missa Gunther, Misa Guseiri and Elizabeth Guthrie.

The confusion surrounding Ms Guthrie deepened further on Friday when a senior Scotland Yard press officer contacted The Mail on Sunday on her behalf to say that she had not told her family that she was a close friend of Gareth Williams.

Mr Williams was discovered naked inside a red North Face holdall, which was padlocked on the outside and placed inside his bath

The official said that the family was well known in America, and that it could embarrass them if Ms Guthrie’s previously unknown connection was made public.

However, it is no secret among Ms Guthrie’s friends that she was close to Mr Williams before he died.

A source involved in the case said: ‘She first met Gareth when she shared a flat in Knightsbridge where Gareth frequently came to meet friends from Wales. They struck up a close friendship because they were both interested in politics and history.

‘But in 2009 she moved out and found a top floor-flat in Pimlico which was close to Gareth’s address.’

In the months before he died, Ms Guthrie’s friendship with Mr Williams blossomed. The source said: ‘On election night in May 2010 the two of them stayed up late with another person to see in the new Coalition Government.’

Mr Williams, a maths genius from Anglesey, North Wales, had worked for the Government listening post GCHQ in Cheltenham since leaving university and was on secondment to MI6 when his body was found by police at his top-floor flat in Pimlico, Central London, on August 23, 2010.

He was discovered naked inside a red North Face holdall, which was padlocked on the outside and placed inside his bath.

The Government has refused to disclose what secret operations Mr Williams was working on during the weeks before his death.

Fresh evidence about his state of mind before his death is expected to be aired at the full inquest – adding to speculation that the spy may have been murdered by a foreign agency or a criminal gang.

The source said: ‘Ms Guthrie said Gareth told her he was being followed in the days before his death.

‘She didn’t know who it was, only that she and Gareth were so concerned that they sometimes varied the route they took home.’

Ms Guthrie also told friends after Mr Williams’s body was found that he was planning to leave the Secret Service so that he could set up his own business with her and another MI6 officer.

‘She was very vague about what this would be, only that it would be with another MI6 officer,’ said the source.

Our investigations in the United States have revealed that Missa Elizabeth Guthrie is the daughter of George Gordon Guthrie, a wealthy New York stockbroker.

The 69-year-old, who is known as Jerry, worked for various Wall Street investment firms, including a securities unit of the French bank Caisse des Depots et Consignations, where he was managing director of options trading.

His brother, Randolph Hobson Guthrie, a retired plastic surgeon, is married to a great-granddaughter of the steel magnate Henry Phipps. Phipps was the son of an English shoemaker who went to America in the early part of the 19th Century.

Phipps became the business partner of Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie who founded the Carnegie Steel Company and built Carnegie Hall in 1891.

Phipps also founded the Bessemer Trust to manage the family fortune. It now manages funds for more than 2,000 families and has £35 billion in assets. There are about 300 of Phipps’ descendants who benefit from the Trust.

Ms Guthrie’s father was previously married to Laura McCord, who is now the wife of Peter Grauer, the chairman of Bloomberg, the multi-billion business news and analysis corporation.

According to US securities records, Ms Guthrie and her mother Donnell, 57, are shareholders in a business and technology consulting firm called Answerthink.

Ms Guthrie grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, a town is known its for great estates and links to famous families such as the Kennedys.

Her childhood homes included a six-bedroom, nine-bathroom mansion. The property is currently valued at £5 million.

Ms Guthrie, who it is claimed has given different names to friends and uses pseudonyms on her Facebook site, is described by friends as a flamboyant character who lived a secretive life working for a Middle Eastern oil and minerals trading company.

'She was very secretive about her work'

In New York she is understood to have also worked as an actress, appearing in a low-budget production called In Search Of Myster Ey, taking the part of a ‘mystery-seeking lady’.

The film is an eccentric investigation into the meaning of the ego.

Ms Guthrie is believed to have left New York for London in 2008.

A source told The Mail on Sunday that she studied at the Regent’s Business School in Central London.

The source added: ‘She had two names, calling herself both Phipps and Guthrie, and claimed to come from a famous American family – but she never really explained who they were.’ Ms Guthrie told her friends that she had travelled widely, visiting the Middle East, China and South America on what she described as business trips.

The source said: ‘The funny thing was that she never explained exactly what she did and was very secretive about her work.

‘She even used the code-name Shark when talking about her business partner.’

In 2008 Ms Guthrie’s parents retired to a four-bedroom, five-bathroom villa for which they paid £2 million on Sea Island, an exclusive resort on a barrier reef on the coast of Georgia. Reached by a dramatic causeway that swoops for miles over marshland and shaded by moss-draped oak trees, Sea Island was once one of the favourite winter resorts for socially ambitious Americans who were drawn to its five miles of private beaches.

The £2 million the Guthries paid was about the average for a home on the island at the time. The island is privately owned by a development company.

But shortly after Ms Guthrie’s parents bought their villa, it was revealed that the company was in financial trouble.

Property values have since plunged and the Guthries’ sprawling home is now valued by one online site at about £1 million.

There was no sign of Ms Guthrie’s parents at the family home yesterday.

The Metropolitan Police have confirmed that the investigation into Mr Williams’s death is ongoing and officers have not ruled out murder.

The coroner’s court heard on Friday that a series of blunders, including a mix-up over DNA found at the scene, had hampered the inquiry. The inquest was also told that a man and a woman of ‘Mediterranean appearance’ who had visited the flat in the weeks before the death, and who were the subject of a police witness appeal, had now been identified and ruled out as a ‘red herring’.

Mr Williams’s family have said they believe that he was murdered by those ‘specialising in the dark arts of the secret services’.

They also suspect a cover-up, suggesting evidence has been removed or tampered with.

Daily Mail : Did MI6 agents 'specialising in dark arts' kill spy in bag? New evidence emerges sparking fresh questions from the victim's family

Did MI6 agents 'specialising in dark arts' kill spy in bag? New evidence emerges sparking fresh questions from the victim's family

* Gareth Williams's family believe a third party was either present when he died or broke into his home afterwards to destroy evidence
* Crime scene forensic scientist’s OWN DNA was found on Mr Williams’s hand
* Relatives wanted to know why the alarm was not raised when Mr Williams failed to turn up at work - by then his body was badly decomposed for analysis
* It also emerged that a Mediterranean couple police wanted to speak to were irrelevant to Mr Williams’s death

By Chris Greenwood | March 31, 2012

The MI6 spy whose body was found locked in a sports bag may have been killed by a secret agent, his family said yesterday.

Their barrister suggested a sinister cover-up had left them with no way of knowing how and why Gareth Williams died.

One theory is that he died at the hands of a colleague. Another is that a foreign agent killed him because of his espionage work.

The discovery of the body in his flat near the Secret Service headquarters in London sparked a 20-month police inquiry that has drawn a blank.

At a public hearing yesterday, it emerged that the flat may have been swept clean of evidence, with no fingerprints or DNA anywhere.

It was also revealed that – far from being a back-office worker – Mr Williams had just completed training for deployment on operations.

Other revelations included:

* An expert seeking signs of forced entry said he was hampered because the front door had been taken from its hinges and locks removed;
* Pathologists still cannot agree on how Mr Williams died. The 31-year-old suffered no visible injuries and could not have locked himself in the bag according to police;
* DNA found on his hand that police rated as highly significant was in fact left by a bungling forensic scientist.

The unclothed body of the super-fit maths prodigy was found in a large padlocked North Face bag in the bath of his Government-owned Pimlico flat in August 2010.

The codebreaker from Anglesey, North Wales, had links to London's bondage and gay scene and it had already been suggested a sex game, possibly with a colleague, may have had a tragic end.

But Westminster Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox was told yesterday his grieving family fear whoever is responsible expertly covered up the evidence.

Their barrister Anthony O'Toole rejected the conclusion of an internal MI6 inquiry that Mr Williams's death 'had nothing to do with his work'.

He said: 'There is a high probability that some third party was in the flat when Gareth was placed in the bag. Evidentially there seems to be no trace of an unknown party in the flat.

'Our impression is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts or secret services.

'Or perhaps evidence has been removed from the scene post-mortem by experts in those arts.'

Mr Williams was nearing the end of a one-year secondment from the GCHQ listening station to the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, in Vauxhall, London.

Dr Wilcox was told a wide-ranging and highly sensitive police inquiry has left many questions unanswered over the circumstances of his death.

Experts believe it would have been 'difficult, if not impossible' for Mr Williams to lock himself in the bag but can find no evidence of anyone else being present.

His body was found curled in the foetal position in the 140-litre black and red holdall with the keys to the Yale travel padlock beneath him. Pathologists found no evidence of injuries or that he attempted to fight his way out. It remains possible that his dead body was put inside the bag.

Dr Wilcox said that whether Mr Williams was alive inside the bag and locked it himself 'was at the very heart of this inquiry'. She may order officials to recreate how he could have got inside it at the full inquest which is due to take place next month.

Experts have been unable to agree on exactly how Mr Williams died, favouring asphyxiation or hypercapnia, a catastrophic build-up of carbon dioxide in the blood.

Their work was hampered by the heavily decayed state of his body and his MI6 colleagues face questions over why they did not raise the alarm earlier.

It also emerged yesterday that Scotland Yard detectives spent almost 20 months pursuing a DNA trace on his body that was left by a clumsy forensic scientist.

The chief executive of LGC Forensics will be hauled before the inquest to explain the astonishing blunder which was discovered only two weeks ago.

The inquest also heard that a Mediterranean couple who called at Mr Williams's block had nothing to do with the case. Detectives released e-fits of the couple and have now traced them. They were looking for a friend's house.

The inquest heard that Mr Williams's family were unhappy about several aspects of the inquiry, including the role of counter-terrorism officers who dealt with MI6 and GCHQ staff. They have raised questions about who ordered a second post-mortem examination and what happened to Mr Williams's possessions held in a work locker.

The family also want to hear more details about the nature of his work but MI6 representatives said disclosing the information could endanger national security.

Dr Wilcox attacked police for delaying the handover of evidence and questioned why the names of some witnesses had been withheld. She said some sensitive letters had gone missing. MI6 has applied for several of Mr Williams's colleagues to give evidence anonymously and from behind screens.

Irish Independent : 'Dark arts' link in MI6 spy's death

'Dark arts' link in MI6 spy's death

By Gordon Rayner in London | March 31, 2012

Gareth Williams, an MI6 spy found dead inside a locked holdall could have been killed by someone who specialised in "the dark arts of the secret services", a coroner has been told.

Mr Williams could not have locked the bag from the inside, meaning a "third party" must have done it, according to a lawyer representing his family.

Relatives believe his death in 2010 may have been linked to his work at MI6, where he had recently qualified for "operational deployment", and that fingerprints, DNA and other evidence was wiped from the scene in a deliberate cover up.

Police have always said they were keeping an open mind on whether the 31-year-old codebreaker was murdered or died as a result of an accident, possibly during a bizarre sex game.

But at an interim hearing ahead of the full inquest, Westminster Coroner's Court in London was told that a delay by MI6 in notifying police of his disappearance meant a post-mortem examination had been "ineffective".

A series of blunders, including a mix-up over DNA found at the scene, had also hampered the inquiry, Dr Fiona Wilcox, the coroner, was told.

Padlocked

Mr Williams, a maths genius who had worked for the government listening post GCHQ in Cheltenham since leaving university, was on secondment to MI6 when his body was found by police in a flat in Pimlico, west London, on August 23, 2010. He was discovered naked inside a red North Face holdall, which was padlocked on the outside and was in his bath.

Dr Wilcox said there were no injuries on the body to suggest he had been in a struggle.

She said it was possible he had got into the bag himself, and was considering ordering a demonstration at the full inquest involving a police expert getting into an identical bag.

Police have released two e-fits of a couple who said they were visiting Mr Williams's home.

Anthony O'Toole, representing the Williams family, said there was "a high probability that there was a third party present in the flat" at the time.

"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," he said.

The coroner said she would "follow the evidence" wherever it led.

(© Daily Telegraph, London)

Independent : Calls for inquiry into 'astonishing' DNA error

Calls for inquiry into 'astonishing' DNA error

Paul Peachey | March 31, 2012

The major blunder that sent detectives on the Gareth Williams inquiry down a blind alley for more than a year is the second embarrassment admitted this month by Britain's biggest private forensic science laboratory.

The latest error – described as "astonishing" and which led to a public apology from the company to the Williams family – has raised questions over systems and practices at LGC, which handles half a million samples a year.

Critics called for a public inquiry to try to discover if private providers were fit for purpose following the final closure today of the state-run Forensic Science Service. "This simply should not happen," said Professor Peter Gill, a founding father of DNA profiling in the 1980s. "Surely there is sufficient evidence to open a public inquiry because we are now getting regular reports of widespread system failure."

The mistake followed the discovery of a partial trace of a second person's DNA on the hand of Mr Williams. To rule out possible contamination from any of the investigators at the scene, those details were loaded manually onto a database.

But that entry was never checked and a simple typographic error meant no match showed up. It was only last week, when the files were checked, that scientists realised the correct trace matched the DNA of a Metropolitan Police scientist.

"We are sorry for any pain this error may have caused Mr Williams' family," said LGC in a statement.

The man who recorded the sample faces an internal inquiry but the ramifications for the company could be more serious. It said yesterday that it had checked back on four years of samples to rule out other errors.

Westminster Coroner Fiona Wilcox said: "There are wider concerns about whether LGC can be trusted to provide a proper level of forensic back-up to all investigations, remembering they are providing forensic DNA and analytical background to a lot of criminal cases."

The failure comes amid a continuing investigation by the forensic science regulator, Andrew Rennison, into another problem at an LGC laboratory in Teddington, southwest London. A contaminated sample led to a man being charged with rape in a city that he claimed he had never visited.

Adam Scott, from Exeter, Devon, was not considered a suspect but was charged after tests on a sample retrieved from the crime scene in Manchester revealed a match. The charge was dropped after LGC accepted that the samples were mixed.

The initial inquiry by Mr Rennison blamed human error and said 26,000 other samples had been checked and no further cases had been identified. Mr Scott's solicitor, Philippa Jefferies, said the latest case reinforced her calls for a public inquiry. "I'm concerned that two basic errors have happened now," she said.

The Home Office said it was "inappropriate" to comment because of the inquest and Met police inquiry.

Daily Mail : Did MI6 agents 'specialising in dark arts' kill spy in bag? New evidence emerges sparking fresh questions from the victim's family

Did MI6 agents 'specialising in dark arts' kill spy in bag? New evidence emerges sparking fresh questions from the victim's family

Gareth Williams's family believe a third party was either present when he died or broke into his home afterwards to destroy evidence
Crime scene forensic scientist’s OWN DNA was found on Mr Williams’s hand
Relatives wanted to know why the alarm was not raised when Mr Williams failed to turn up at work - by then his body was badly decomposed for analysis
It also emerged that a Mediterranean couple police wanted to speak to were irrelevant to Mr Williams’s death

By Chris Greenwood | March 30, 2012

The MI6 spy whose body was found locked in a sports bag may have been killed by a secret agent, his family said yesterday.

Their barrister suggested a sinister cover-up had left them with no way of knowing how and why Gareth Williams died.

One theory is that he died at the hands of a colleague. Another is that a foreign agent killed him because of his espionage work.

The discovery of the body in his flat near the Secret Service headquarters in London sparked a 20-month police inquiry that has drawn a blank.

At a public hearing yesterday, it emerged that the flat may have been swept clean of evidence, with no fingerprints or DNA anywhere.

It was also revealed that – far from being a back-office worker – Mr Williams had just completed training for deployment on operations.

Other revelations included:

An expert seeking signs of forced entry said he was hampered because the front door had been taken from its hinges and locks removed;
Pathologists still cannot agree on how Mr Williams died. The 31-year-old suffered no visible injuries and could not have locked himself in the bag according to police;
DNA found on his hand that police rated as highly significant was in fact left by a bungling forensic scientist.

The unclothed body of the super-fit maths prodigy was found in a large padlocked North Face bag in the bath of his Government-owned Pimlico flat in August 2010.

The codebreaker from Anglesey, North Wales, had links to London's bondage and gay scene and it had already been suggested a sex game, possibly with a colleague, may have had a tragic end.

But Westminster Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox was told yesterday his grieving family fear whoever is responsible expertly covered up the evidence.

Their barrister Anthony O'Toole rejected the conclusion of an internal MI6 inquiry that Mr Williams's death 'had nothing to do with his work'.

He said: 'There is a high probability that some third party was in the flat when Gareth was placed in the bag. Evidentially there seems to be no trace of an unknown party in the flat.

'Our impression is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts or secret services.

'Or perhaps evidence has been removed from the scene post-mortem by experts in those arts.'

Mr Williams was nearing the end of a one-year secondment from the GCHQ listening station to the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, in Vauxhall, London.

Dr Wilcox was told a wide-ranging and highly sensitive police inquiry has left many questions unanswered over the circumstances of his death.

Experts believe it would have been 'difficult, if not impossible' for Mr Williams to lock himself in the bag but can find no evidence of anyone else being present.

His body was found curled in the foetal position in the 140-litre black and red holdall with the keys to the Yale travel padlock beneath him. Pathologists found no evidence of injuries or that he attempted to fight his way out. It remains possible that his dead body was put inside the bag.

Dr Wilcox said that whether Mr Williams was alive inside the bag and locked it himself 'was at the very heart of this inquiry'. She may order officials to recreate how he could have got inside it at the full inquest which is due to take place next month.

Experts have been unable to agree on exactly how Mr Williams died, favouring asphyxiation or hypercapnia, a catastrophic build-up of carbon dioxide in the blood.

Their work was hampered by the heavily decayed state of his body and his MI6 colleagues face questions over why they did not raise the alarm earlier.

It also emerged yesterday that Scotland Yard detectives spent almost 20 months pursuing a DNA trace on his body that was left by a clumsy forensic scientist.

The chief executive of LGC Forensics will be hauled before the inquest to explain the astonishing blunder which was discovered only two weeks ago.

The inquest also heard that a Mediterranean couple who called at Mr Williams's block had nothing to do with the case. Detectives released e-fits of the couple and have now traced them. They were looking for a friend's house.

The inquest heard that Mr Williams's family were unhappy about several aspects of the inquiry, including the role of counter-terrorism officers who dealt with MI6 and GCHQ staff. They have raised questions about who ordered a second post-mortem examination and what happened to Mr Williams's possessions held in a work locker.

The family also want to hear more details about the nature of his work but MI6 representatives said disclosing the information could endanger national security.

Dr Wilcox attacked police for delaying the handover of evidence and questioned why the names of some witnesses had been withheld. She said some sensitive letters had gone missing. MI6 has applied for several of Mr Williams's colleagues to give evidence anonymously and from behind screens.

~~~~~

The Unanswered Questions

THE death of MI6 spy Gareth Williams has left Scotland Yard's most experienced detectives searching for answers. These are some of the key questions they face:

Was somebody else present in Mr Williams's immaculate top floor Alderney Street home when he died?

Could the 31-year-old get inside the North Face holdall and padlock it from the inside without the assistance of a third party?

Why were Britain's best forensic experts unable to find a single trace of anyone else -- whether by DNA, fingerprints or other traces -- in the flat?

Is it significant that an expert brought in to search for evidence of forced entry was hampered because the front door had been taken from its hinges and locks removed?

How did the victim actually die? He suffered no injuries and forensic tests have revealed nothing unusual in his blood.

What exactly did Mr Williams do for the GCHQ listening station and MI6 that made him such a highly-prized employee?

Why did it take the victim's MI6 colleagues eight days to raise the alarm and send police to his home?

Does MI6 hold material that could shed light on Mr Williams's death that officials refuse to reveal because they fear jeopardizintg secret operations?

Is Mr Williams's bizarre and secretive private life, in which he visited gay bars, amassed women's clothing and viewed bondage websites, linked to his death?

Why did the secret agent fail to tell his employer that he was undertaking a series of part-time fashion courses at Central St Martins College?

Who ordered the second post-mortem examination and why have letters between the coroner and police gone missing?

What happened to Mr Williams's possessions that he kept in a shared locker at MI6 headquarters?

Telegraph : MI6 spy Gareth Williams death: agent could 'not have locked himself in bag'

MI6 spy Gareth Williams death: agent could 'not have locked himself in bag'

An MI6 spy, Gareth Williams, whose body was found in a holdall, could not have locked himself in the sports bag, a coroner was told.

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter | March 30, 2012

The naked and decomposing body of the 31-year-old GCHQ codebreaker was found in a bag in the bath of his Pimlico flat on August 23, 2010.

Nearly 18 months on, police have been unable to establish what led to his death despite toxicology tests and an exhaustive investigation into his background that has been hampered by errors.

On Friday, at a pre-inquest review, Westminster Coroner’s Court was told that his family believe Mr Williams was murdered by a member of "some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services".

Concerns were also raised about how Mr Williams' MI6 employers failed to raise the alarm when he failed to arrive for work.

The court heard the delays in finding his body resulted in the post mortem being "ineffective".

But in another key blunder, DNA found on the spy's hand, thought to be crucial to the case, turned out to be from a forensic scientist who took evidence at the scene.

Human error in the way DNA results were then fed into a computer led to false leads being pursued needlessly until this year.

Forensic lab LGC is to blame for the blunder, the hearing heard. The coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, said it throws into doubt the reliability of their work on this case, as well as others.

She expressed frustration over delays, describing them as "an ongoing problem", as she called for inquiries into the DNA "error".

Dr Wilcox told the hearing that whether Mr Williams was alive inside the bag and locked it himself "was at the very heart of this inquiry".

Anthony O'Toole, representing the family, told the inquest that there was a "high probability" that a third party was in the flat.

"The unknown third party was a member of some agency that specialised 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," he said.

He said the family had no view on whether it was a foreign agency or a British agency that was behind either the murder or the cover-up. The family still do not know what Mr Williams did for a living.

Mr O’Toole said that the family had hoped that forensic evidence might help to convict the killer if the police found a suspect.

But following the discovery that DNA found on his hand belonged to a police worker, there was now no forensic evidence which could identify the killer.

He said that Mr Williams had attended two “operational development courses” in the months before his death.

“With effect from March 18, 2010, he could be operationally deployed,” he said.

“In our submission, to properly explore the circumstances of the death, we do need to know something of the deceased’s work.

“SIS (MI6) say the risk to the deceased was assessed to be low, but we don’t know why … we got a bland statement from SIS that the death is nothing to do with his work.”

The coroner assured Mr O’Toole: “I absolutely intend to follow the evidence in this case."

The hearing was told that experts who worked on the case agreed that the code breaker could not have locked the bag himself from the inside.

They could be asked to re-enact how he could have got into the bag by giving a live demonstration in court.

Dr Wilcox told the court there was a lack of pathological evidence to prove Mr Williams made a "frantic attempt" to get out of the bag.

Meanwhile, a "Mediterranean couple" who were reportedly seen visiting the flat have been ruled a red herring by police.

Agents from both MI6 and GCHQ, where Mr Williams had been seconded from, are due to be called to give evidence when the inquest opens next month.

Applications were being made by GCHQ lawyers for agents to be allowed to give evidence anonymously and behind a screen.

Further "corporate statements" from both organisations are set to be tendered, which lawyers for MI6 told the court would "paint a picture and set the scene".

Evidence will also be given about the contents of Mr Williams' locker at GCHQ in Cheltenham, Glos, which the hearing was told several people had access to.

The inquest is unlikely to be shown video of material found on Mr Williams' iPhone that was recovered from his work locker.

The inquest is due to start on April 23 and last five days, with 30 witnesses set to be called to give evidence.

Witnesses will include Mr Williams' sister and the police officers who opened the front door and discovered the padlocked bag containing the body.

Organisers of the ladies fashion course Mr Williams is said to have secretly enrolled on will give statements to the inquest.

Three colleagues, known as witnesses K, F and G, will be called to give evidence and will take questions from his family, the court heard.

An officer from Scotland Yard’s counter terrorism command will also attend the inquest to explain its official role following a request from the spy’s family.

Witness K, a colleague at GCHQ, will also give evidence about Mr Williams' "state of mind" on his last trip taken before his death.

Witness F was considering taking over the MI6-owned flat when the spy returned to Gloucestershire.

Meanwhile Witness G, Mr Williams’ line manager, will be asked to explain why the alarm was not raised sooner when Mr Williams failed to arrive for work.

The alarm was raised by a GCHQ HR manager when she rang the Metropolitan Police, who went to his house for a routine "welfare check".

Dr Wilcox told the hearing that he wanted the inquest to go ahead for the sake of Mr Williams’ family.

This Is London : Forensic DNA blunder hindered 'spy in bag' investigation for a year

Forensic DNA blunder hindered 'spy in bag' investigation for a year

Paul Cheston, Kiran Randhawa | March 30, 2012

The family of dead spy Gareth Williams are convinced he was the victim of "the dark arts of the secret services" a court heard today.

They believe an agent was in the Pimlico flat where died inside a padlocked duffle bag in the bath.

Then the secret service destroyed the evidence before the alarm could be raised, eight days after he was last seen alive in August 2010.

In a pre-inquest hearing today Anthony O’Toole, representing the family told the court of their fears about their son’s suspicious death.

“Our impression is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services.

“Perhaps the evidence of that third party has been removed by some person post-mortem who is expert in those arts.”

Mr Williams’ parents Ian and Ellen who live in Anglesey, were not in court for today’s hearing.

Mr Williams, a code breaker for GCHQ, had been on secondment to MI6 when he died.

The 31-year-old was discovered dead in a North Face holdall eight days after he had last been seen.

A pre-inquest hearing at Westminster magistrates' court today heard how a major forensic blunder over DNA allegedly found on the spy's body has caused his family months of unnecessary heartache.

The DNA sample was discovered on the hand of the former GCHQ code breaker who was on secondment to MI6 when he was discovered dead at a Pimlico flat in August 2010.

It was believed to bear a mixed profile clearly suggesting that another person must have been at the flat when Mr Williams died inside a padlocked sports bag in the bath. But the court was told today that the DNA trace was due to contamination by a scientist at the scene. It was then incorrectly entered into the computer at the laboratory LGC.

The error, discovered only two weeks ago, has led the police investigation up a blind alley for more than a year. Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox today demanded statements be taken from Tony Larkin, the scientist who allegedly contaminated the sample, and Paul Stafford Allen, who was said to have recorded the error on the computer.

She also demanded assurances from LGC managing director Steve Allen and chief executive David Richardson that systems were in place to ensure that the impact of this kind of human error could not occur again.

“There are wider concerns about whether LGC can be trusted to provide a proper level of forensic back-up to all investigations, remembering they are providing forensic DNA and analytical background to a lot of criminal cases,” said the Westminster coroner.

“What I’m concerned about is that the system in place to detect the error, and human errors will always occur and it is not unusual for contamination to happen, but I am concerned about the system evaluation and back up and the analysis of the evidence taken. There has been so much public speculation and so much public anxiety that that is the reason the court has to act to address it head on.”

The court heard that his family was concerned that MI6 did not take any steps to check on his welfare for more than a week, even though he had not been turning up to work.

As a result, his body was so contaminated that scientists are unable to be certain about the exact cause of death.

The full inquest hearing is due to start at the end of next month and last at least five days.

The coroner today said that she would ask scientists to carry out a re-enactment in court of how Mr Williams could have got into the sports bag.

The court has heard that scientists are agreed that it would have been virtually impossible for him to have locked the bag on the outside when he was inside.

Dr Wilcox said: “I want it demonstrated in court exactly how somebody could have got into the bag, done it up and locked it from the outside when confined inside.­ I want a practical demonstration of this in court. It is something I have given an awful lot of my time considering.

“I want a very clear demonstration. It’s the fundamental issue in this case whether Gareth Williams was able to lock the bag outside when he was inside it — it’s the very heart of this inquiry.”

The coroner said she wanted to establish an answer to the question of whether Mr Williams could have suffered from a lack of oxygen or from a build up of carbon dioxide.

This was a key line of inquiry considering the lack of injuries to Mr Williams’s body and the lack of pathological evidence that he made any frantic attempt to get out of the bag.

The inquest is expected to hear from 30 witnesses giving evidence in court.

Three of Mr Williams’s former colleagues will be called to give evidence and will be known only by the initials K, F and G.

They include Mr Williams’s line manager, described as the “chap at the coalface” by Anthony O’Toole, counsel representing the family.

The hearing continues.

During a two hour hearing Mr O’Toole told Westminster Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox: “We thought there was DNA evidence that was a dead end. There was also a footprint found, that has turned out to be a dead end.”

Later the court went into private session to hear PII evidence which Foreign Secretary William Hague wanted to be kept secret on the grounds of national security during the inquest which is due to start on April 23 and last for at least five days.

The Coroner said she would deliver a written judgement on the submissions.

Mirror : Was body-in-the-bag spy betrayed by a double agent? Mole theory over MI6 codebreaker's death

Was body-in-the-bag spy betrayed by a double agent? Mole theory over MI6 codebreaker's death

In a throwback to the dark days of the Cold War, a worrying theory has emerged about the death of body-in-the-bag spy Gareth Williams

March 10, 2012

In a throwback to the dark days of the Cold War, a worrying theory has emerged about the death of body-in-the-bag spy Gareth Williams

The expert codebreaker’s decomposing body was found locked in a large sportsbag in the bath of his London flat in 2010.

There were no obvious signs of how he died or who was responsible – with many claiming a “wall of silence” surrounding his death points to a cover-up at the very heart of the British establishment.

And now it has been revealed Gareth may have been betrayed by a British double agent.

Security bosses are trying to establish if a mole somewhere within intelligence revealed his identity to foreign assassins.

The brilliant mathematician, 31, was working for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and would have been a high value target – vital in producing hi-tech defences to prevent cyber attacks on our most secret government departments.

He was one of only a handful of spies launching effective counter attacks to stop enemy hackers infiltrating British networks.

Williams had been seconded from the top-secret Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham to MI6 in the capital.

He was making clandestine visits to Washington to team up with US espionage agents and share intelligence in operations to fend off hostile hacking infiltrations by Russia and China.

Eighteen months after his bizarre death, investigators are still piecing together his every move to try to get information which could lead them back to a British double agent.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, refuses to rule out the possibility that British national security has been breached by the death.

He said: “Reassurance can only be given if it’s based on some new information, and only those who have the skills and the responsibility to carry out such an investigation can take that forward. There have been exhaustive inquiries but they have been unable to reach a conclusion.”

North Wales-born Williams’s parents, Ian and Ellen, hope more will be revealed when a full inquest is opened next month.

They have been told by MI6 chiefs not to talk about his death, while police and security officers have also remained tight-lipped – fuelling speculation the British establishment does not want to reveal what happened to one of its most valued agents.

It was 4.40pm on August 23, 2010, when his naked, contorted body was found by police, zipped and padlocked in a red, 140-litre-capacity North Face hold-all in the bath of his top-floor apartment owned by MI6.

There were no signs of a struggle within flat 4, Alderney Street, Pimlico, less than a mile away from MI6’s HQ, across Vauxhall Bridge.

The key to the bag’s Yale lock was in the hold-all and police said forensic tests showed at least one other person was involved but have not been able to prove it was murder and do not think he killed himself.

Williams, a 9st cycling enthusiast, had not showed up at work for days when an officer went to the flat. Police said he probably died eight days earlier – just weeks after a man and woman of Mediterranean appearance had called at his flat.

Mystery also surrounds a break-in at the flat in the months before – while more twists and turns in the story led to lurid tales about his private life.

One claimed he was a transvestite who police thought may have been murdered by a gay lover.

And the most extreme claim was that he may have died in an auto-erotic asphyxiation sex game gone wrong.

Police also revealed he had £15,000 worth of unworn women’s designer clothing, shoes and wigs in his flat, but his friends believe many of these stories were planted to cloud the investigation.

Crispin Black, an intelligence analyst and former adviser to the Government, says the most likely explanation is that Williams was murdered.

“The thing has a professional air – it’s neat, it’s tidy, it’s organised,” he said.

“A bath is where you put things if you don’t want any forensic residue to be left behind – because you know where the body’s been and you can clear up after it.”

The fact the body was found locked in a holdall, with the key inside, provides the strongest indication he was executed by a foreign death squad.

Investigators believe the team were so expert at their deadly trade, they left no obvious signs of the cause of death.

A security source said: “This has all the hallmarks of a state-sponsored assassination. If you’ve got a problem with your codes being broken, the only solution is to remove the codebreaker.

"They’re incredibly hard to replace because they are recruited for having the sharpest mathematical brains.

"There’s always suspicion about the Russians because in many ways the Cold War never completely ended.”

The possibility of a British intelligence mole has to be a huge worry for national security.

Professor Anthony Glees, director of security and intelligence studies at the independent University of Buckingham, said: “Sir Malcolm himself says he could not give the public reassurance that national security had not been breached by Gareth Williams’s death.

"I think we need an answer, especially in light of the fact that this year, with the Olympics and Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, we are clearly a target.

“It’s a possibility that there is a spy and that someone betrayed Gareth Williams.

"It’s by no means unthinkable he was targeted by intelligence officials from other countries who believed he was targeting them.”

The police have not spoken publicly about the death for a year.

And Williams family friend Trefor Lloyd Hughes, 64, said: “I have no doubt some higher influences will be involved here which may stop certain information from getting through, but the family need peace.”

Even before his secondment to MI6, his work in signals intelligence at GCHQ would have put him on the front line in the international cyber war, helping to combat insurgent bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Codebreakers, phone and radio interceptors and internet experts fight the triple threat of terrorism, espionage and organised crime.

At Williams’s funeral at the windswept Bethel Chapel in Holyhead, Anglesey, his family were consoled by MI6 chief Sir John Sawyers, who said: “Gareth did really valuable work with us in the cause of national security.”

Back in Anglesey, those who knew Gareth Williams would no doubt like to know if it was that cause which he ended up giving his life for.

Gloucestershire Echo : Death of spy Williams will be discussed

Death of spy Williams will be discussed

March 9, 2012

THE death of Cheltenham spy Gareth Williams is to be discussed at the end of this month.

Yesterday Westminster said the pre-inquest review will be heard on Friday, March 30, at Westminster Coroner's Court.

The former GCHQ codebreaker, who was working for security service M16 while on secondment from the Cheltenham intelligence base, was found naked inside a bag on August 23, 2010, at his flat in London.

It is believed he had been dead for a week.

In February last year an inquiry into the 31-year-old's death was adjourned as Scotland Yard detectives waited for the results of a fresh round of forensic tests.

Counter-terrorism officers had interviewed in the region of 40 of the expert codebreaker's colleagues at GCHQ in Cheltenham as well as at MI6, Westminster Coroner's Court heard at the time.

They were said to have been passing on their findings to a team of investigators from the force's Homicide and Serious Crime Command, who are responsible for the inquiry.

The inquest heard that some or all of them could give evidence about Mr Williams.

He had been just days away from completing a one-year secondment from GCHQ to MI6 in the capital.

The keen cyclist rode with the Cheltenham and County Cycling Club and had worked in the town for 10 years.

Daily Post : Claims building in which Anglesey MI6 spy lived in was broken into

Claims building in which Anglesey MI6 spy lived in was broken into

by Dan Beavan, DPW West | February 20, 2012

SECURITY concerns had been raised in the months before the body of a spy was found in a holdall it has been claimed.

The body of 31-year-old GCHQ code-breaker Gareth Williams, from Valley, Anglesey, was discovered in his London flat in August 2010.

He had been padlocked inside a holdall that was left in an empty bath.

His death appeared a baffling mystery to Met Police.

But according to a leading Sunday newspaper, a source close to Mr Williams has come forward claiming the Pimlico building, where the spy lived in London, was broken into several months before his death, which has apparently not been revealed by the authorities.

According to the source Mr Williams had told him a female occupant on the ground floor flat had asked the spy to swap apartments after hers was broken into.

The property was used by MI6 to house its agents.

A major investigation by the Met Police was launched but has so far failed to establish what led to his death.

Westminster Coroner’s Court has said a pre-inquest review will take place on March 29, with a full inquest to follow three weeks later.

The inquest is expected to last four days.

Evening Standard : Body-in-bag spy's family demand answers from inquest 18 months on

Body-in-bag spy's family demand answers from inquest 18 months on

Kiran Randhawa | February 20, 2012

The family of an MI6 spy found dead in a sports bag are demanding that they are finally told what happened to him.

The badly decomposed body of Gareth Williams, 31, was found 18 months ago in a holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico. Although a series of toxicology tests was performed to determine what caused his death, it still remains unexplained.

A pre-inquest review into the case will be held on March 29 at Westminster coroner's court, and a full inquest is expected to begin three weeks later.

Mr Williams's family hope a blanket of secrecy over the case will finally be lifted.
Trefor Lloyd Hughes, a friend of the family, told the Standard: "They need to know what happened to Gareth. I hope we finally get some real answers.

"Let's hope the family can gain some solace at last. They have been in the dark for so long and have no idea what happened to their son.

"They need answers to end their agony. I have no doubt some higher influences will be involved here which may stop certain information from getting through, but I would say the family need peace."

Mr Hughes, 64, a councillor and retired ambulance worker from Holyhead, Anglesey, lived across the road from Mr Williams's parents Ian and Ellen for several years. Their sons grew up together and he remains a good friend of the family.

He added: "It's taken so long for this inquest to come along. I will be really disappointed if further information comes out years down the line that didn't come out during this inquest.

"It will be hard for his parents to go through it, but we are all hoping this will be the end. You do get annoyed they have had to wait this long though. It's absolutely disgraceful."

As many as 40 of Mr Williams's colleagues from GCHQ and MI6 are expected to give evidence at the inquest, although their testimony is likely to be heard in secret to protect their identities.

Police found the cycling enthusiast's naked body zipped and padlocked in a red North Face holdall on August 23 2010 at his flat less than a mile from MI6's headquarters in Vauxhall. There were no signs of a struggle.

The property was used by MI6 as a safe house. Mr Williams, a GCHQ codebreaker on secondment, had not been at work for several days.

Pimlico People : Inquest held in Pimlico spy murder

Inquest held in Pimlico spy murder

By James Mass | February 2, 2012

Almost two years after the mysterious death of Gareth Williams, the MI6 spy whose body was found in a holdall in his Pimlico flat, an inquest is to be finally held.

Having carried out toxicology tests and a prolonged investigation police were unable to form a conclusion on the bizarre case. Dr Fiona Wilcox, the coroner for Westminster, is due to hold the hearing in April. A pre-inquest review will be held on 29th March at Horseferry Road Coroner's Court.

It's been reported that as many as 40 colleagues of the deceased from GCHQ and MI6 will provide evidence.

Mr Williams' badly decomposed body was found on 23rd August 2010 by an officer who was alerted by Williams' sister who anxiously called because she had not heard from her brother in ten days.

This Is Somerset : Spy death inquest dates

Spy death inquest dates

Western Daily Press | January 31, 2012

An inquest into the death of Cheltenham spy Gareth Williams will take place more than 18 months after his body was found locked in a bag at his flat in London.

The body of the GCHQ codebreaker, on secondment to MI6, was found naked inside the bag on August 23, 2010.

It is believed he had been dead for a week. Confirmation was given yesterday that a pre-inquest review will take place in London on March 29.

The Daily Mail has reported that a full inquest is expected three weeks later and said the hearing is expected to call up to 40 of Mr Williams's colleagues from GCHQ and MI6 to give evidence, likely to be heard in secret.

In February last year, an inquiry into the 31-year-old's death was adjourned as Scotland Yard detectives waited for the results of a fresh round of forensic tests.

Counter-terrorism officers had interviewed around 40 of his colleagues at GCHQ in Cheltenham, as well as at MI6, Westminster Coroner's Court heard at the time.

They were said to have been passing findings to investigators from the force's Homicide and Serious Crime Command, which is responsible for the inquiry.

The inquest heard that some or all of them could give evidence about Mr Williams.

At the time of his death, the keen hill-race and time-trial cyclist had been days from completing the one-year secondment from GCHQ in Cheltenham, where he worked for ten years and rented a flat in Bouncers Lane.

This Is Gloucestershire : GCHQ codebreaker death: Evidence may be heard in secret

GCHQ codebreaker death: Evidence may be heard in secret

January 31, 2012

AN inquest into the death of Cheltenham spy Gareth Williams will take place more than 18 months after his body was found locked in a bag in London.

The former GCHQ codebreaker, pictured, who was working for security service M16 while on secondment from the intelligence base, was found naked inside the bag on August 23, 2010, at his flat.

It is believed he had been dead for a week. Confirmation was given yesterday that a pre-inquest review will take place in London on March 29.

The Daily Mail has reported that a full inquest is expected to take place three weeks later.

The paper said the hearing is expected to call up to 40 of Mr Williams's colleagues from GCHQ and MI6 to give evidence, but it also reported that their testimony was likely to be heard in secret to protect their identities.

In February last year an inquiry into the 31-year-old's death was adjourned as Scotland Yard detectives waited for the results of a fresh round of forensic tests.

Counter-terrorism officers had interviewed in the region of 40 of the expert codebreaker's colleagues at GCHQ in Cheltenham as well as at MI6, Westminster Coroner's Court heard at the time.

They were said to have been passing on their findings to a team of investigators from the force's Homicide and Serious Crime Command, who are responsible for the inquiry.

The inquest heard that some or all of them could give evidence about Mr Williams.

He had been just days away from completing a one-year secondment from GCHQ to MI6 in the capital.

He had worked in Cheltenham for 10 years and rented a flat in Bouncers Lane.

A keen cyclist, he regularly rode with the Cheltenham and County Cycling Club.

Fellow club member Don Muir told the Echo people had an enormous amount of respect for Mr Williams as a cyclist.

Speaking to the paper shortly after the GCHQ worker's death, he said: "He has been involved with the club for around eight years, but only became a member in the past couple of years.

"He would turn up, take part in rides, and then go home.

"He didn't really get involved in the social side of the club.

"He took part in hill racing and time trials on the flat and he was good at both.

"It's really quite bizarre and shocking.

"A lot of people who ride with us work for GCHQ and as soon as we find out, we talk about something else because we know they can't speak about it."

There have been a number of conspiracy theories about Mr Williams's death.

Daily Post : Inquest into death of Anglesey MI6 spy Gareth Williams to take place in April

Inquest into death of Anglesey MI6 spy Gareth Williams to take place in April

by Dan Beavan | DPW West | January 31, 2012

THE inquest into the death of MI6 spy Gareth Williams will take place in April.

Codebreaker Mr Williams, 31, from Valley, Anglesey, was found dead locked in a sports bag at his central London flat in August 2010.

A major investigation by the Metropolitan Police has failed to establish what led to his death.

Now Westminster Coroner’s Court has said that a pre-inquest review will take place on March 29, with a full inquest to follow three weeks later.

The inquest is expected to last four days.

It will be held by Westminster coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox at Horseferry Road Coroner’s Court in London.

The review will establish who will give evidence and also in what form, with some evidence given “in camera” to protect the identities of Mr Williams’ former colleagues at MI6.

Former Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern pupil Mr Williams was a gifted mathematician who attained a first class degree in maths aged just 17.

He began work at the Government Communications HQ in Cheltenham before being seconded to MI6 for a year.

His death attracted worldwide attention and huge speculation over how he died and if it was linked to his work as a spy with MI6 or his private life.