GCHQ code-breaker death was actually suspicious after all

[Cain]

Whoops.  Well, I'm sure it was an honest mistake. After all, a man locking himself inside a bag, in an apartment with the heating turned well up, during a hot summer, sounds like a perfectly normal death and no cause for concern whatsoever, especially when he then fails to turn up to work for a week.  Due to, you know, being dead and all.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9175780/MI6-spy-Gareth-Williams-death-agent-could-not-have-locked-himself-in-bag.html

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".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9179432/Spy-in-holdall-death-believed-he-was-being-followed.html

One source told a Sunday newspaper: "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 his job 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.

Police have revealed that Mr Williams had been visiting bondage websites and drag clubs and had a £15,000 collection of women's designer clothing and wigs.

Officers do not believe he could have locked himself in the bag but believe his death was probably a sex game that went wrong.

A man and a woman of "Mediterranean appearance" who had visited the flat in the weeks before the death, have since been identified and ruled out.

However, Anthony O'Toole, representing the Williams family, said it was possible the unknown third party who locked him in "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."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jk-ONfiqY8RpStzpsmeZib1TyENQ?docId=N0020931333109928707A

Forensic scientists apologised to the family of holdall spy Gareth Williams after it emerged that a DNA error had dashed a "key" line of inquiry into his death.

LGC said one of its staff members made a "typographical error" while inputting code, leading Scotland Yard to spend more than a year trying to trace a non-existent suspect.

It was confirmed last month, when LGC carried out a review, that the partial DNA profile belonged to a scientist involved in the case.

"Having made further checks, LGC identified the partial profile as matching that of a Metropolitan Police scientist who was involved in the original investigation of Mr Williams' home," a LGC spokeswoman said.

[Doktor Howl]

Jesus.  What a circus.

Are you guys hiring from the CIA or something?

[Cain]

It's just a sex-game that went wrong.  By killing a man.  Who was a spy.  Among enough suspicious circumstances to make John le Carre and the corpse of Robert Ludlum to express disbelief.  Hardly worth investigating, really.

[Doktor Howl]

It's just a sex-game that went wrong.  By killing a man.  Who was a spy.  Among enough suspicious circumstances to make John le Carre and the corpse of Robert Ludlum to express disbelief.  Hardly worth investigating, really.

But at least your forensics geeks are top notch, and don't take samples of themselves by accident.

I love this shit.

[Cain]

Who could have forseen that privatised forensic labs would go horribly wrong?

[Junkenstein]

"LGC said one of its staff members made a "typographical error" while inputting code, leading Scotland Yard to spend more than a year trying to trace a non-existent suspect."

I would pay good money for a transcript of the meeting where that came to light.

"Any luck finding that Tim XXX yet?"
"You mean Jim XXX?"
"No, Tim XXX"
"Never heard of him"

Don't blame privatised services. It's cost effective.

[Don Coyote]

Nothing suspicious there at all. I mean, what would Bond do?

[Junkenstein]

Bond's able to spot a man in drag. This sounds more like the work of that bastard 006.

[Cain]

Turns out the apartment - an SIS safe-house - was owned by a front company named "New Rodina".  Oh, very amusing, intelligence services.

[Cain]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/02/gareth-williams-death-mi6

The cause of death of Williams, 31, who was found padlocked in a holdall in the bath at his flat in Pimlico, central London, was "unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated", said Dr Fiona Wilcox.

Passing a narrative verdict, she said she was satisfied that "a third party placed the bag in the bath and on the balance of probabilities locked the bag".

Some discrepancies have been noted between the inquest and initial reports.  According to initial reports and police statements, William's hands were tied behind his back, to such a degree that a police officer initially thought his limbs had been cut off.  Yet at the inquest he was said to have had his arms resting on his chest.

We also discovered that William's phone had been wiped.  Lets face it, if you're engaged in sex games, you usually don't wipe your phone as a precaution beforehand.  So a wiped phone, a man locked in a hold-all, an apartment free of fingerprints and the heating turned up high, in the middle of August.  If this was a sex game gone wrong, then the other party managed to clean the scene of incriminating evidence like a pro.

The actions of the intelligence agencies are still hard to explain.  Not only was he absent from work for a week, an officer was only dispatched when the HR employee at GCHQ who initially attempted to contact him heard that he was still missing.  His locker at Vauxhall House was not secured when the police asked MI6 to, and at least two other people shared the same locker space with him and could have accessed it in the interval.

There is a rumour, that I have not been able to verify thus far, that Williams had been accessing files before his death that had little to do with his current assignment, whatever that may have been, since MI6 have been remarkably cagey about revealing anything to do with that.  What is known is that MI6 had approved him for operation deployment - field work - and that his previous assignments had involved attending conferences where criminal hackers were believed to be present.  No doubt this played to William's strengths as a mathematician and code-breaker.

The main thing to take away from this is that someone just essentially killed a spy and retreated into the shadows, and either that killer is being protected, or British intelligence are even more incompetent than I originally thought.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Can't speak for British "Intelligence" but isn't this a Met investigation? The Met? Y'know, barely sentient knuckle dragging retards who'd be hard pressed to find their own arse if you handed them a map?

[Cain]

Yup.  They also had a meeting with MI6 right at the start of the investigation where MI6 clearly drew the parameters of the investigation up.  For instance, there is a heavy suspicion that Williams was going to go undercover, but Six wont allow that to be discussed.

The inquest also said that Six couldn't be ruled out as suspects in the unlawful death.  Can you think of any other investigations where a suspect gets to set the parameters of legitimate investigation?  Other than NotW hacking, of course?

[P3nT4gR4m]

I was watching a news report of it yesterday with photos of the crime scene. All I could think of was the suicide explanation at the start of Long Dark Teatime of the Soul. 

[Cain]

Also, you know all those rumours about being a transvestite?

The clothes in his flat were not out of their packaging.  And were not in his size.  They were however in his sister's size, and he was very close to her.

The rumours about him being into bondage - he was once, 10 years ago, found tied to the bed by his landlady, who helped him get loose.  This was shortly after he had been accepted to work for MI6, and could have plausibly been training for attempting to escape being bound. 

All those porn sites he supposedly visited?  They made up a very small percentage of his online time, and he visited them very infrequently.

All the sex speculation is based on "gays lol" and incomplete or misrepresented information, and came out so quickly I can only conclude it was an intelligence services smear job to try and cover up both Williams' unusual death and his activities shortly preceding it.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Concur! It's a tried and tested formula. Public always laps it up.