GCHQ code-breaker death was actually suspicious after all

[Junkenstein]

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

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, and British intelligence are even more incompetent than I originally thought.

Cain, I think I fixed that for you.

This entire thing has stank for a while. Anyone else see the clips and interviews with the two escape artists who tried to mimic how the body was found? I that's not part of the "look at the strange thing! Don't ask awkward questions" act, I don't know what is.

[Cain]

If they did kill him, they got away with it and so by definition are not incompetent.  Even if they did have to wave "national security" in everyone's faces for months on end, in answer to every question.

And while the escape artists was a bit of theatre, it was probably good, because those guys are escape experts and they struggled with the simulation, over hundreds of attempts.  If nothing else, that fact will stick in the mind of the public, that someone seriously wrong occured here.

[P3nT4gR4m]

If they did kill him, they got away with it and so by definition are not incompetent. 

Does it still count if every man woman and child in the country knows they did it?

[Cain]

I don't see anyone being arrested for this, do you?

And that's all that actually matters.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Point. Still strikes me as cheating, tho. More Ronnie Biggs than Jack the Ripper.

[Junkenstein]

Wild, crazy speculation time.

Say a third party is able to identify one of your spies, compromise him to the point where you can kill them and shove the body in a bag, then pretty much get away clean.

Wouldn't that person be worth hiring?

I've been going over this, and it makes little sense for a government to kill it's own spies. It makes lots of sense to hire spies of other countries.

What I'm getting at is that if who-ever is responsible for this didn't work for MI6 before, they probably could do now. It would explain a lot about why it's being pushed away and hushed up.

/end crazy speculation

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Something doesnt feel right about that. I dunno. I imagine that its either they offed their own guy for some reason or that theyre trying to downplay that one of their agents let himself get killed somehow.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

And by that i mean he let his guard down and was taken out by a better spy from elsewhere perhaps.

[Cain]

I don't understand the bag business at all.

Why put someone in a bag once you've killed them?  I can think of three possible reasons:

1) to minimize the smell
2) in order to transport them elsewhere to dispose of them
3) to send a message

All are possible.  A killer that was intending to do b) might have been interrupted, and so unable to complete the disposal of the body.  a) prevents discovery for long enough that the method of killing is hard to distinguish (especially if injections are used) and c)...well, then we'd have to know the motive for killing him, which could be almost anything.

[Junkenstein]

Given that the rest of the place was professionally "cleaned" 2 doesn't sit right. You're able to kill, clear up pretty much all evidence, shove a body in a bag and you can't remove it? Just sounds wrong to me, I doubt people who are capable of the above shit themselves when someone knocks on the door.

That really only leaves smell minimization to be the logical choice. Messages tend to be a bit more public and nasty (Litvinenko anyone?)



In other news, a film version of Spy Vs Spy has been announced. I can only hope they take a reference or two from things like this.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I iamgine with the heat turned up that the bag was both to reduce smell and aid decomposition. But does that mean they were going to come back for the bag after the body rotted enough? Why leave it there?

[Cuddlefish]

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. 

Ah, Dirk Gently. Been a while since I read those.

[Template]

I iamgine with the heat turned up that the bag was both to reduce smell and aid decomposition. But does that mean they were going to come back for the bag after the body rotted enough? Why leave it there?

implant/swallowed key?
Lower profile than using modern imaging, maybe.

[navkat]

"Who could have forseen that privatised _____ would go horribly wrong?"

NEXT GREAT MEME.

[Cain]

Chances of this being an official cover-up on the Met side of things just dropped considerably

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17993222

MI6 staff may have samples of their DNA checked following the death of MI6 officer Gareth Williams, the head of the Metropolitan Police has confirmed.

Bernard Hogan-Howe also demanded that MI6 give "unrestricted access" to detectives for the first time, as Scotland Yard reinvestigate the case.

The naked body of Mr Williams, 31, from Anglesey, was found locked in a bag in a bath in his London flat in 2010.

A coroner has concluded that he was probably unlawfully killed.

She also said she doubted whether Mr Williams' death would ever be explained, saying that "fundamental questions" remained unanswered.

Mr Hogan-Howe said any screening of staff at MI6 would be voluntary and could involve a few MI6 officers, or many.

A number of DNA samples were taken during the previous investigation.

Mr Hogan-Howe said: "Of course it may well be that Gareth Williams' death has nothing to do with employment. All we need to do is to make sure that all areas of his life were fully explored."

When asked if MI6 had agreed to grant new levels of access, Mr Hogan-Howe said they didn't have to: "It's called the law."

He criticised an "unacceptable" breakdown in communication over potential evidence, which emerged during the inquest.

I love that line, "it's called the law".