Death of Gareth Williams

Gareth Wyn Williams (26 September 1978 – c. 16 August 2010) was a Welsh mathematician and Junior Analyst for GCHQ seconded to the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) who was found dead in suspicious circumstances at a Security Service safe house flat in Pimlico, London, on 23 August 2010.

The inquest found that his death was "unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated."

A subsequent Metropolitan Police re-investigation concluded that Williams's death was "probably an accident".

Two senior British police sources have said some of Williams's work concerned Russia – and one confirmed reports that he had been helping the US National Security Agency trace international money-laundering routes that are used by organised crime groups including Moscow-based mafia cells.

Originally from Valley, Anglesey, Wales, Williams, who spoke Welsh as a first language, began studying mathematics part-time at Bangor University, while still attending his secondary school, Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern, and graduated with a first-class degree at age 17.

After gaining a PhD at the University of Manchester, he dropped out from a subsequent post-graduate course at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and took up employment with GCHQ in Cheltenham in 2001, renting a room for nearly a decade in Prestbury, Gloucestershire.

Reportedly an intensely private man and a keen cyclist, Williams was due to return to Cheltenham at the beginning of September 2010, following his annual leave.

Police visited Williams's home during the afternoon of Monday 23 August 2010, as a "welfare check" after colleagues noted he had been out of contact for several days.

His naked, decomposing remains were found in the bath of the main bedroom's en-suite bathroom, inside a red bag that was padlocked from the outside, with the keys inside the bag.

The police had gained entry into his top floor flat in Alderney Street, Pimlico at around 16:40.

His family alleged that crucial DNA was interfered with and that fingerprints left at the scene were wiped off as part of a cover-up.

Inconclusive fragments of DNA components from at least two other contributors were found on the bag.

A forensic examination of Williams's flat, a security service safe house, has concluded that there was no sign of forced entry or DNA that pointed to a third party present at the time of the spy's death.

Scotland Yard's inquiry also found no evidence of Williams's fingerprints on the padlock of the bag or the rim of the bath, which the coroner said supported her assertion of "third-party involvement" in the death.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said it was theoretically possible for Williams to lower himself into the bag without touching the rim of the bath.

A key to the padlock was inside the bag, underneath his body.

Williams was buried at Ynys Wen cemetery in Valley, Anglesey, on 26 September 2010, following a private funeral service at Bethel Chapel in Holyhead attended by his family, friends, former colleagues in the intelligence services, and also by the head of SIS, Sir John Sawers.

Williams's date of death was estimated to have been in the early hours of 16 August, one week before he was found.

Soon after the investigation started, the heads of the Secret Intelligence Service and Metropolitan Police met to discuss how the police would handle the investigation in light of the top secret nature of Williams's work, and who would lead the investigation.

Williams had recently qualified for operational deployment, and had worked with U.S. National Security Agency and FBI agents.

The U.S. State Department asked that no details of Williams's work should emerge at the inquest.

The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, signed a public-interest immunity certificate authorising the withholding from the inquest of details of Williams's work and U.S. joint operations.

After launching an investigation, coroner Fiona Wilcox said that there were no injuries on his body and no signs that he had been involved in a struggle; his body was also free of alcohol and common recreational drugs.

The Metropolitan Police considered his death "suspicious and unexplained".

The FBI also conducted their own investigation into the case.

In December 2010, police released further details, stating that Williams had occasionally spent between 30 minutes and an hour on bondage websites, but added there was no evidence that he was "obsessed" with bondage and no other pornography was found.

Williams's wardrobe included £25,000 of "high-end" women's clothing.

The landlady of the annex flat he had rented in Cheltenham for 10 years said she and her husband had once found him, three years before his death, shouting for help, with his hands tied to his bedposts.

He said he was seeing if he could get free.

They cut him free, believing it was "sexual rather than escapology".

An expert brought in to examine the bag in which Williams's body was found concluded that Williams could not have locked it.

A police spokesperson stated that: "If he was alive, he got into it voluntarily or, if not, he was unconscious and placed in the bag."

The heating in Williams's apartment was found to be turned on.

It has been suggested an elevated temperature inside the apartment would have sped up the decomposition of Williams's body.

Subsequently, the police released an E-FIT photo of two people they were seeking, who were seen to enter the communal entrance of his home in June or July 2010.

Anthony O'Toole, the lawyer for the family, said at the coroner's inquest in March 2012 that a second person was either present when Williams died, or someone broke in afterwards and stole items.

There was no forensic evidence to support this view.

No sign of forced entry could be found, but it was also noted that the door and locks had been removed by the time police experts had become involved.

DNA found on Williams's hand turned out to be contamination from one of the forensic scientists and the police determined that a Mediterranean couple they had been seeking had nothing to do with the inquiry.

LGC, the forensic company, apologized that the error had inflicted such pain on the family, caused by the incorrect data entry of a numerical code.