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Dead MI6 spy Gareth Williams 'visited bondage websites'
An MI6 spy found dead in a padlocked holdall in his central London flat had accessed bondage websites several times, police have revealed.
Gareth Williams, 31, from Holyhead on Anglesey, had also visited a drag show and owned £15,000 worth of women's designer clothing, detectives said.
Mr Williams' naked body was found at his Pimlico flat in August.
Police believe other people helped the the MI6 codebreaker to get into the holdall and want to speak to them.
Officers have released e-fit images of a couple who they said visited Mr Williams' Alderney Street home in June or July.
Det Ch Insp Jackie Sebire said: "We remain completely open-minded about how he died.
"We are appealing today to someone who is out there to come forward and tell us more."
Police revealed Mr Williams viewed websites showing people bound and tied, which included do-it-yourself guides.
The two e-fit images issued by police show a casually-dressed couple of Mediterranean appearance, thought to be in their 20s, who were buzzed through the communal entrance of his home by another resident in late June or July.
The GCHQ code-breaker, who had been on secondment to the spy agency, was found dead by police after concerns were raised for his welfare.
No evidence of drugs, alcohol or poisons were found during a series of tests conducted by toxicologists.
Det Ch Insp Sebire revealed police had forensic evidence that other people were in the flat, whom they have not been able to trace.
She added that an expert, brought in to examine the red holdall in which Mr Williams was found, concluded he could not have locked it.
The keys were found inside the bag.
She said experts had said the temperature inside the bag would have risen to 30C within three minutes and he would have suffocated within half-an-hour.
Fashion design courses
The detective added Mr Williams probably died in the early hours of 16 August, a week before he was found.
He had a collection of six boxes of unworn designer clothing in a wardrobe, she said.
Mrs Sebire said Mr Williams attended two fashion design courses at Central St Martins College in 2009 and 2010, and said the items could have been related to the diploma course.
The detective said that although a witness had reported seeing Mr Williams in a gay bar, police do not know for certain he was gay.
She said Mr Williams occasionally spent between 30 minutes and an hour on bondage sites, but added there was no evidence that he was "obsessed" with bondage and no other pornography was found.
Police also revealed that the spy visited a drag cabaret in east London four days before his death and held tickets to two more.
Det Ch Supt Hamish Campbell said investigators were sure someone else involved with the bondage or gay scene had "linked in" with Mr Williams but police "cannot find that trace".
The death remains suspicious and unexplained and no conclusive cause has been found.
An inquest will be held at Westminster Coroner's Court on 15 February.
MI6 Spy Gareth Williams: Keys Found Under Body, Inside Bag
December 22nd, 2010
Via: Telegraph:
Detectives investigating the death of the MI6 spy Gareth Williams have disclosed that keys to the padlock on the sports bag were found inside the North Face holdall, underneath Mr Williams’s naked body.
An expert on rescuing people from confined spaces has told investigators that it would be impossible to lock the bag from the inside, although the keys are not necessary to close the padlock.
Other keys were found in the flat which could have opened the padlock but were not obviously laid out.
The expert got into the bag, which is made of a synthetic rubber called Neoprene, on behalf of the police and discovered that within three minutes the temperature had reached 30 degrees Celsius and after half an hour the oxygen had run out.
Dead spy was in training for new identity: report
– Sat Dec 25, 9:04 pm ET
LONDON (AFP) – A British spy whose body was found padlocked inside a bag at his London flat in August had been training to take on a new identity in the months leading up to his death, a newspaper reported Sunday.
A close friend of Gareth Williams, 31, a codebreaker for Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6, also told the Mail on Sunday paper he was not homosexual and wanted a girlfriend.
Police have suggested his death was linked to London's gay or bondage scene and thousands of pounds worth of women's clothing was found in his flat following his death.
"He said he was learning his new identity," said Sian Lloyd-Jones, 33, a close childhood friend from Wales, referring to an evening earlier this year when Williams paid her a visit.
"He often came round with his work. That night he came over with his box file and started going through it. He had two passports."
...
But fashion stylist Lloyd-Jones, dismissed suggestions he was homosexual and said the 15,000 pounds worth of unworn designer clothes were likely a gift for her and the spy's sister, Ceri.
"I truly believe if he had any interest in homosexuality, he would have spoken to his sister and to me as well," she said.
"It would have been fine if he was but he had too much interest in women. He wanted a girlfriend and he wanted a wife and family."
Jeff wrote:Dead spy was in training for new identity: report
– Sat Dec 25, 9:04 pm ET
LONDON (AFP) – A British spy whose body was found padlocked inside a bag at his London flat in August had been training to take on a new identity in the months leading up to his death, a newspaper reported Sunday.
A close friend of Gareth Williams, 31, a codebreaker for Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6, also told the Mail on Sunday paper he was not homosexual and wanted a girlfriend.
Police have suggested his death was linked to London's gay or bondage scene and thousands of pounds worth of women's clothing was found in his flat following his death.
"He said he was learning his new identity," said Sian Lloyd-Jones, 33, a close childhood friend from Wales, referring to an evening earlier this year when Williams paid her a visit.
"He often came round with his work. That night he came over with his box file and started going through it. He had two passports."
...
But fashion stylist Lloyd-Jones, dismissed suggestions he was homosexual and said the 15,000 pounds worth of unworn designer clothes were likely a gift for her and the spy's sister, Ceri.
"I truly believe if he had any interest in homosexuality, he would have spoken to his sister and to me as well," she said.
"It would have been fine if he was but he had too much interest in women. He wanted a girlfriend and he wanted a wife and family."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/britaincrimeintelligence
Seamus OBlimey wrote:...
"
My point, though, is that the US has had the potential capability to track Russian mobsters since SWIFT let us access the databases after 9/11, particularly now that we’re making all our specific requests orally. So far as I know, no one has ended up dead in a duffel bag over that access.
Moreover, there would be a great deal of people who would like to prevent the UK from getting their own back door into the global finance system, if that’s really the reason Williams was killed. (Note, Williams was also reportedly about to join the UK’s cybersecurity team, which might offer other reasons to want him dead.) Sure, the Russian mafia are among that group, but so would be many others with the means to murder a spook.
Now, it may be that this entire new narrative is just as sketchy as the sex crime one was. Or it may be that this is a preemptive attempt to suggest only Russian mobsters have anything to hide.
But I do find this latest narrative mighty intriguing.
dqueue wrote:Adding a link to Emptywheel's blog post on this latest development... she's an astute observer...
Emptywheel's "SWIFT" Boating the Russian mafia
She closes:My point, though, is that the US has had the potential capability to track Russian mobsters since SWIFT let us access the databases after 9/11, particularly now that we’re making all our specific requests orally. So far as I know, no one has ended up dead in a duffel bag over that access.
Moreover, there would be a great deal of people who would like to prevent the UK from getting their own back door into the global finance system, if that’s really the reason Williams was killed. (Note, Williams was also reportedly about to join the UK’s cybersecurity team, which might offer other reasons to want him dead.) Sure, the Russian mafia are among that group, but so would be many others with the means to murder a spook.
Now, it may be that this entire new narrative is just as sketchy as the sex crime one was. Or it may be that this is a preemptive attempt to suggest only Russian mobsters have anything to hide.
But I do find this latest narrative mighty intriguing.
The whole post is worth a read.
Dead spy’s family says ‘dark arts’ agents covered up his death
By Agence France-Presse | Friday, March 30, 2012 16:50 EDT
The family of a British spy whose body was found padlocked inside a bag believe secret agents versed in the “dark arts” tried to cover up his mysterious death, lawyers told a coroner on Friday.
The decomposing remains of Gareth Williams, 30, were found on August 23, 2010, in a North Face holdall bag in the bath at his London home, near the headquarters of external intelligence service MI6 where he worked.
Anthony O’Toole, a lawyer for the relatives of Williams, told a coroner that the family believe someone else was either present when he died, or broke into his home afterwards to destroy evidence.
“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,” he said.
Coroner Fiona Wilcox is holding a review of evidence ahead of a full inquest into Williams’s death. Inquests are held in England to examine sudden or unexplained deaths.
Wilcox said she wanted to see a practical demonstration of how Williams could have got into the bag and locked it by himself, given that one suggestion is that he did so as part of a sadomasochistic sex ritual.
She said the issue of whether Williams was alive inside the bag and had locked it himself “was at the very heart of this inquiry”.
The coroner also called for an explanation after Scotland Yard revealed that two key lines of inquiry pursued by police for months had both been in error.
Forensic teams flagged up a spot of DNA on the dead man’s hand in 2010 for investigation, but realised two weeks ago that it belonged to a crime scene scientist, the force told the coroner.
A Mediterranean couple that police said they urgently wanted to speak to in connection with the death were also found to be irrelevant to the inquiry, they said.
Williams was described by friends as a shy mathematics genius and keen cyclist.
He was just days from completing a one-year secondment to MI6 from his job at GCHQ, Britain’s electronic “listening post” which monitors communications for intelligence purposes, located in Cheltenham.
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