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British secret service agent ends up dead in a bag which was locked from the outside.
Police were thinking maybe he locked himself in the bag !!
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Tom Whitehead and Martin Evans, security specialists
Coroner: MI6 spy's death was probably a crime
Police to take DNA samples from MI6 spy's colleagues as coroner says death was probably a murder.
DNA samples from up to 50 colleagues of Gareth Williams, the MI6 spy found dead in padlocked holdall, are being taken by police after a coroner concluded he was probably "unlawfully killed".
• Police to take DNA samples from up to 50 of spy's colleagues
• Gareth Williams was probably unlawfully killed - coroner
• 'Criminally mediated' - third party locked bag and placed in bath
• Spy probably died of poison or carbon dioxide inside bag
• Clothes did not fit codebreaker and probably bought as gifts
• Family calls on Met chief to review the case and SO15 'failings'
• MI6 chief Sawers apologises for delay in raising alarm
TIMELINE
How the mystery of the 'spy in the bag' unfolded
How the mysterious case of Gareth Williams, the MI6 worker found dead in a sports bag, unfolded.
2001 Gareth Williams, a maths prodigy from Anglesey, joins GCHQ, the British national security agency responsible for intercepting and decoding signals intelligence.
2007 His landlord and landlady have to rescue him in the middle of the night after he apparently ties his wrists to the headboard of his bed to see if he can "get free".
2008 - 2009 Store receipts suggest Mr Williams acquires a collection of women's clothing and footwear worth £20,000 during the period.
2009 He is seconded from GCHQ to the Secret Intelligence Service.
11 August 2010 Mr Williams returns to Britain from a conference and holiday on the west coast of the US. CCTV footage shows he goes shopping alone in London's West End the same day, visiting Selfridges department store.
12 August 2010 He goes shopping alone in west London, this time at Harvey Nichols and Harrods department stores and a Waitrose supermarket in the Knightsbridge area. According to witnesses, he also pops into his London office but it is thought he goes only to drop off some documents.
13 August 2010 He goes to work and attends a show on his own by drag queen Jonny Woo at the Bistrotheque club in Bethnal Green, east London.
14 August 2010 Mr Williams goes shopping again, visiting the Holland Park area of west London and luxury department store Fortnum & Mason.
15 August 2010 He does yet more shopping in Knightsbridge, buying some cakes in Harrods and some peppered grilled steaks in Waitrose. The final CCTV image of him is captured at 3.05pm entering Alderney Street in Pimlico, where he lives in a top-floor flat half a mile from MI6's London headquarters.
16 August 2010 The last computer evidence of him being alive is Mr Williams looking at a cycling time trial website.
25 August 2010: A GCHQ worker in his 30s is found dead in a large sports bag in his bath, the Daily Telegraph reports. He was on secondment to MI6, police believe. His mobile telephone and sim cards had been carefully laid out on a table. He had been there sometime and his body had decomposed.
26 August 2010: The dead man is named as Gareth Williams. Police believe he may have been killed by a "jealous lover" but they do not rule out the possibility his death was linked to his intelligence work. There were no signs of forced entry and a post mortem is inconclusive. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is given updates on the probe as part of scheduled intelligence briefings. His parents, Ellen and Ian, return from holiday to identify their son.
27 August 2010: Friends tell the Daily Telegraph Williams was "one of life's innocents" who could have fallen in with "unsafe" company as details emerge about his brilliant mathematical abilities. Geraint Williams, a maths teachers at Bodedern Secondary School, said the "exceptional" pupil had "the best brain I have ever seen". Friends disclosed that Mr Williams travelled to the United States at least three times a year for up to a month at a time, throughout his time working for GCHQ. It is believed he was working with the National Security Agency, the national listening station near Baltimore, as well as possibly the CIA and FBI in Washington. Philip Johnston profiles GCHQ, the British evesdropping agency.
28 August 2010 Williams' family attacks "completely false" smears about his private life. It is reported that the spy was gay or even a transvestite, and that bondage equipment had been found in his flat.
29 August 2010 Williams was recruited by GCHQ scouts while studying at Cambridge University, this newspaper learns. He worked at the Super Computer Centre, developing techniques to speed up data encryption, before taking postings at RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire and the US NSA's Fort Meade base. He was due to start work at GCHQ's Cyber Security Operations Centre after his posting at MI6 came to an end.
30 August 2010 Murder detectives tell the Daily Telegraph Williams may have been killed by a foreign intelligence agency seeking to stop his code-breaking work. They say Williams returned from a foreign trip on August 11 and was last seen alive on August 15 - eight days before his body was discovered. Sources close to the inquiry said they are looking at the possibility that his body was manhandled into the bag in order to remove it from the premises. A pathologist remains unsure how Williams died. His family pay tribute to a "generous, loving, son, brother and friend".
2 September 2010 A coroner reveals Mr Williams was padlocked into the sportsbag when he was found dead.
6 September 2010 Police suspect Mr Williams was poisoned - and launch a hunt for a Mediterranean-looking couple who visited the Pimlico safehouse before he died. CCTV footage shows the spy shopping in the West End wearing a red t-shirt and beige trousers.
12 September 2010 Mr Williams was working on systems to defend the banks of the City of London from foreign attack at the time of his death, the Sunday Telegraph learns. One theory being examined is that Mr Williams may have had an approach from a rival agency, and either rebuffed it without informing his superiors or initially agreed to cooperate then got cold feet. If such an approach had been exposed there would have been severe political and diplomatic repercussions, making it expedient for Mr Williams to be killed.
20 September 2010 Police now believe Mr Williams' death was linked to an unusual sex game. Officers have ruled out almost every other possibility. They have come to the view that Gareth Williams probably died after climbing into the bag which was then locked by another person. Detectives believe he was probably indulging in a sadomasochistic game in which he got a thrill from being helpless. It is likely that once locked and left in the bag, he died from a combination of causes including suffocation and dehydration, which sources said can be hard to identify in a post-mortem inquiry.
24 September 2010 Mr Williams is buried at Holyhead, Anglesey. Sir John Sawers, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, tells mourners: "Gareth was a hugely talented person and very modest as well. He did really valuable work with us in the cause of national security." Other MI6 and GCHQ staff enter the church through a back door to protect their identities.
29 October 2010 Tests on Mr Williams' body found no trace of drugs, alcohol or poison - reinforcing the sex game theory.
22 December The keys to the padlock were found inside Mr Williams' North Face holdall, under his naked body, it emerges.
23 December 2010 Mr Williams had visited bondage websites, gay bars and drag clubs in the weeks before his death, police reveal. He also maintained a £15,000 collection of women's clothes by designers including Stella McCartney and Christian Louboutin. They were in sizes that would have fitted the 5ft 8ins spy. Unknown to his family and colleagues, Mr Williams had attended two short courses in fashion design at the Central St Martin's College of Art and Design in London during evenings and weekends, one in 2010 and one in 2009.
27 December 2010 Mr Williams had intended to give the clothes away as gifts, Sian Lloyd-Jones, a childhood friend says. "I truly believe that Ceri and I were going to receive the clothing. He was so generous you wouldn't believe," she said. She reveals Mr Williams was training to take on a new identity and had a second passport.
16 December 2010 The inquest into Mr Williams death is adjourned again to allow more tests. Dr Paul Knapman says the case has made little progress, the 'Mediterrean' couple have not been traced and a break-through looks unlikely.
31 March 2012 An interim hearing before a full inquest takes place. A lawyer representing Mr Williams' family says he could have been killed by someone who specialised in the "dark arts of the secret services". The MI6 worker had recently qualified for "operational deployment". Finger prints and DNA evidence was wiped from the scene of the crime in a cover-up, the family believe. It emerges that DNA found on Mr Williams' hand, which officers believed could lead them to his killer, belonged to one of the police forensics worker. The code for the sample had been incorrectly logged by LGC, the forensics company.
3 April 2012 Scotland Yard apologises for "administrative errors'' during its probe. The force said it was responsible for giving a coroner three names for the same witness. Elizabeth Guthrie is expected to be questioned about her contact with Mr Williams in the months before his death. The coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, told a pre–inquest review last week that ''there has been some confusion'' over her identity.
21 April 2012 Ahead of the inquest, Mr Williams' family says their emotions remain "very raw". His aunt, Judith Thomas, says: "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."
22 April 2012 Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, met Sir Paul Stephenson, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, hours after Gareth Williams' body was discovered. MI6 feared detectives would extend their probe into sensitive areas, including the nature of Mr Williams' work.
23 April 2012 The inquest continues. Mr Williams' sister, Ceri Subbe, tells Dr Fiona Wilcox that her brother did not enjoy the "flash car competition and post-war drinking culture" of MI6, and had applied to return to Cheltenham but MI6 were slow in approving his request.
24 April 2012 Fragments of another person's DNA were discovered on the outside of the bag in which Gareth Williams was found, the inquest heard. The traces were discovered on the toggle attached to the zip and the padlock used to lock the bag, it was revealed. Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, who led the police investigation into Mr Williams’ death, told the inquest: “My thought or opinion since I went into the scene is that a third party had been involved in the death or in putting the bag in the bath.”
The inquest also heard that MI6 held an internal investigation into Mr Williams' death. Andrew O’Connor, the lawyer for the Secret Intelligence Service, told coroner Fiona Wilcox that MI6 had carried out its own internal review. He said: “The fruits of that internal investigation were shared with the police at the time.” Dr Wilcox replied that she had not seen the results of the inquiries and asked for any report that had been produced to be submitted to the inquest.
25 April 2012 Mr Williams was once discovered tied to his bed posts wearing only boxer shorts. The maths prodigy was living alone in Cheltenham at the time and had to call for help in the middle of the night to be set free. His landlady and landlord, who lived below him heard his yells and were met with the “shocking” scene, Westminster Coroners’ Court heard. Searches of his home computers seized after his death revealed that he had been visited "websites of claustrophillia, and he also had access to bondage and sado masochism websites, the inquest has heard earlier in the day.
But a friend told the inquest Mr Williams was straight and not a transvestite. Elizabeth Guthrie, who had only known Mr Williams since 2009, said he may have had women’s clothing in his flat as “support strategy” for female friends. She said he would not have let anyone in to his flat unless he had a “very strong relationship” with them.
26 April 2012 MI6 officer SIS F tells the inquest that Mr Williams' interest in women's clothing and sadomasochism would not have prevented him becoming a spy. The inquest also heard that Mr Williams had conducted unauthorised searches on the MI6 database that could have put him at risk to “hostile and malign” parties.
Denise Stanworth, a toxicologist, told the inquest that traces of the date rape drug GHB were found in the body of Gareth Williams. They possibly occurred naturally. A panel of forensics experts which reviewed the post mortem findings was unable to rule out the use of certain poisons, such as cyanide and chloroform.
27 April 2012 Williams may have been able to get in the bag himself, the inquest hears. Despite experts failing to complete the bizarre task more than 100 times, a specialist said it could not rule out that someone with training could achieve it.
But a second expert, Peter Faulding, said he tried and failed to get into the bag 300 times. “My conclusion is he was placed in the bag unconscious or was dead when he was put in the bag. I cannot say it is impossible but I think even Houdini would struggle with this one.”
30 April 2012 A pathologist says Mr Williams probably died from poisoning, suffocation or strangulation. But Dr Richard Shepherd, a second pathologist, said he believed Mr Williams died inside the bag - probably from the build up of carbon dioxide.
1 May 2012 MI6 and a senior police officer are accused of undermining the investigation. The coroner told Det Supt Michael Broster, a counter-terrorism officer acting as liaison between MI6 and police investigating the death, that he was biased towards the intelligence services. Nine memory sticks that may have belonged to Mr Williams were never passed to Metropolitan Police investigators, and MI6 officers examined "electronic media" belonging to the spy without telling them, the inquest heard. A full inventory of his work belongings, drawn up by MI6 a year after his death, was never handed over.
2 May 2012 Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox delivers her narrative verdict.
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Unanswered Questions
Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox has delivered her conclusion in the case of Gareth Williams, the MI6 spy found dead in a holdall, but many questions about his mysterious death remain unanswered.
Was someone else involved?
The police are certain a third party was involved but even if that is the case it still remains unclear whether it was some tragic accident or murder.
Did he get in the bag alone?
Experts believe it is most likely that he was helped or forced in to the bag and died once inside.
Was he poisoned?
The badly decomposed state of his body means tests for certain poisons, such as cyanide and chloroform, can never be carried out.
Was it connected to his work?
A senior counter terrorism officer admitted he could not rule out that someone from MI6 was involved.
What was he searching on the MI6 databases?
It emerged he had conducted some unauthorised searches of MI6 databases but the intelligence service did not reveal what they were.
Why was there so little DNA evidence in his flat?
The family believe people expert in the “dark arts” were involved and that could mean someone with knowledge of how to “clean” a crime scene.
Why was the heating on?
It was the middle of summer. It raises the prospect it was deliberately turned on to speed up decomposition.
Why did the presence of nine computer memory sticks and a hold all at work only emerge this week?
It remains uncertain what was on the sticks, whether they belonged to Mr Williams and why they were never disclosed to the investigating team.
Did MI6 and counter terror police hamper the investigation?
The coroner accused a senior police officer of not being “completely impartial” and suggested he would have seized more work-related items if it had not been MI6.
Were his work computers tampered with?
They were not handed over to the police for several days after his body was discovered.
Why was one of his phones restored to factory settings on the night before he is believed to have died?
Police investigations are continuing.
Whose DNA is on the bag?
The traces of at least two people were found but are so weak they may never be of any use and could be “years” old.
Was he a transvestite or just interested in fashion?
No one knows why he had £20,000 worth of womens’ clothing in his flat, mostly in pristine condition. He had attended two fashion courses.
Did MI6 know about his private life?
It is unclear if his penchant for womens’ clothing, tying himself to his bed and visits to bondage websites were ever picked up by his bosses.
Did he film himself naked on his phone or was someone else present?
Police found a video of him dancing in front of his phone wearing only leather boots.
Did he take drugs?
Traces of the date rape drug GHB were found in his body but it remains uncertain whether it was taken or naturally occurring after death, which is common.
Why were the keys to the padlock inside the bag?
Was it to torment him or a bizarre escapology attempt gone tragically wrong?
Why did he have a newspaper article discussing the main regrets of dying people?
Was it a plant to suggest suicide?
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