MI6 Intelligence Analyst’s Bizarre Death ’Likely Accident’, Police Say
MI6 spy Gareth Williams was found dead, naked, stuffed in a padlocked sports bag, in an empty bathtub. He was a codebreaker for the British eavesdropping agency GCHQ, and also worked for MI6 as an intelligence analyst.The conclusions reached by authorities suggest his death was a tragic accident - a mystifying feat that he pulled off by himself.
The case of the strange death of MI6 spy Gareth Williams is ONLY ’unexplained’ if you remove any involvement of the very agencies he worked for.
OF COURSE the case seems bizarre and unsolvable if you leave out a murderer and make the only permissible conclusion be that he must have SEALED HIMSELF into a suitcase! Without leaving ANY DNA on the outside of the sports bag, or hand prints on the tub itself.
More on the investigation that requires you to suspend belief and throw critical reasoning out the door...
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MI6 spy Gareth Williams death ’probably an accident’, police say
From: BBC News
The death of MI6 spy Gareth Williams, whose body was found in a padlocked sports bag, was probably an accident, police have said.
Last year, a coroner said it was likely Mr Williams, 31, from Anglesey, had been unlawfully killed in August 2010.
But the Metropolitan Police said an evidence review had found "it was more probable" no other person was present when he died in his London flat.Mr Williams’s family said they stood by the coroner’s findings.
In a statement, they said: "We are naturally disappointed that it is still not possible to state with certainty how Gareth died and the fact that the circumstances of his death are still unknown adds to our grief.
"We consider that on the basis of the facts at present known, the coroner’s verdict accurately reflects the circumstances of Gareth’s death."
Bath
Mr Williams’s body was found naked at his flat in Pimlico on 23 August 2010 after colleagues raised concerns for his welfare.
He had been on a secondment with MI6 from his job as a communications officer at the GCHQ "listening post" in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
Police discovered his body inside a zipped-up red sports holdall, in the empty bath of his bathroom.
It had taken a week for MI6 to investigate the code-breaker’s disappearance, and a post-mortem examination carried out by a Home Office pathologist failed to determine the cause of death.
During a seven-day inquest in May 2012, the question of whether Mr Williams could have padlocked himself into a bag in a bath was central.
Pathologists said he would have suffocated within three minutes if he had been alive when he got inside it.
None of his DNA was found on the lock attached to the bag and his palm prints were not found on the rim of the bath.
Coroner Fiona Wilcox concluded that "most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered".
But she said he was, "on the balance of probabilities", unlawfully killed.
At a briefing on Wednesday, the Met Police announced the conclusion of its three-year investigation into the incident.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said he was satisfied it was "theoretically possible" Mr Williams could have padlocked the bag from the inside, although "many questions remain unanswered" as to the circumstances of his death.
But he said there was no evidence that the MI6 officer had intended to take his own life or that his death was connected to his work.
And he insisted it was "beyond credibility" that he had been misled.
"I do not believe that I have had the wool pulled over my eyes. I believe that what we are dealing with is a tragic unexplained death," he said.
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Read the full article at: bbc.co.uk
A fresh review of the mysterious "spy in the bag" case has concluded that 31-year-old intelligence analyst Gareth Williams was not murdered but had climbed into the bag without assistance.
The police findings contradict those of a coroner who concluded at an inquest last year that another person was probably involved in Williams’s death.
"My personal view at the end of the investigation is that what happened was an accident," Martin Hewitt, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, said.
"I am convinced that Gareth’s death was in no way related to his work."
He admitted that several "odd" factors remained - notably the fact that no DNA was found on the padlock and there were no handprints on the bathtub.
"Most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered," he said.
"It is unlikely that his death will ever be satisfactorily explained."
The decomposed body of the talented mathematician was found locked in a North Face holdall inside the bath of his apartment in London’s upmarket Pimlico district in August 2010.
Coroner Fiona Wilcox concluded at the inquest that Williams probably died of suffocation or poisoning.
She had heard from experts who had repeatedly failed to padlock themselves into bags identical to his holdall.
One expert said escapologist Harry Houdini "would have struggled" to pull off the feat.
But Mr Hewitt said police were satisfied that it was "theoretically possible" for a man to lock himself in the bag, and stressed that this had been accepted by the coroner.
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