British spy' found dead in bath

Originally posted by tristar

British spy' found dead in bath

www.guardian.co.uk

Police were last night investigating the murder of a man whose body was found stuffed in a sports bag in the bath of his London flat.

The man, who was in his early 30s, is believed to have worked for the government's intelligence agencies. An unconfirmed report suggested he had worked at GCHQ, the government's secret listening service, and had been on secondment to MI6, the secret intelligence service, when he disappeared up to 10 days ago.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Interesting to note was the following from The Guardian in that article:

The property where Williams lived is divided into four flats and is registered to a private company, New Rodina, with an offshore address in the British Virgin Islands.

Rodina is Russian for 'Motherland', so hence the private company that the flats are registered to means 'New Motherland'.

Going by this name of New Rodina (Motherland), the fact the man was said to have worked for MI6 and GCHQ, and the flats were near MI6, it may be that the flats were a residence for those working for the Russian section of a GCHQ-MI6 liason, monitoring all things Russian.

Add in the matter of UVB-76, The Russian numbers station as has been raised, and it certainly gets even more interesting.

The name New Rodina evokes an image of a New Russia, a new perceived threat of an old adversary from the Cold War for MI6 and GCHQ hence the name?

Or perhaps New Rodina, (New Motherland) a code name for an operation to see a new Russia over time? We know that London is home to many Russian exiles and expats.


Again from the Guardian:

Public documents revealed several current and former residents of the block have links to London and Cheltenham. One Frenchman who lived there between 2005 and 2006 is an expert in global satellite positioning, radio communications and high-sensitivity antennas.

GCHQ is based in Cheltenham of course.

[edit on 26-8-2010 by Regensturm]

Good thread.

It looks to me to be pointing too clearly at the Russians.

How soon after the numbers message did the murder take place?

Originally posted by Hedera Helix
reply to post by Peruvianmonk

 

Double agent...
second line.

Proof?

Thought not

Maybe he was working on a "Whodini" trick and suffered an epic FAIL.

Famous last words: "I will shove myself in this duffle bag and escape certain death." "TA DAH."

Just sayin...it could happen, right?

It is the first murder on British soil of someone linked to the secret services since the death of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 and Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov In September 1978.

Markov, poisioned with - Ricin
Litvinenko, poisioned with - Polonium-210
Perhaps Williams with Thallium?

In more modern times three poisons – thallium, ricin, and polonium-210 – have dominated the armoury of political assassins partly because they are insidious and take several days before they do their worst

Source

The News reported that no knife wounds were found on the body, although this doesn't mean that it was Poisoning I just thought it interesting to note.

The evidence that we have at the moment doesn't suggest any of these Poisons but we can never trust the evidence in situations like this,

I get the feeling that the crime scene will resemble some type of suggestive immoral activity...

reply to post by tristar


One question about this if you all don't mind but its bugging me,
The photos? What's wrong with them?
Odd.

reply to post by jazz10


Well lets see. Picture one is an image depicting the removal of the victims corpse to the waiting Coroners vehicle. The persons transporting the corpse appear to be forensics officers , since they are wearing suits and gloves to prevent transfering thier own genetic and other material onto the crime scene. Its not unusual to see such persons without thier masks and so forth on, especialy outside of a crime scene.
The only unusual thing I see in this photo, is the lady in the background , centre right with the beige/grey top and black trousers on. She doesnt seem to belong in such a scene, but could just as easily be a neighbor as a suspect figure.

Picture Two is a simple shot of the suspected decedant during some form of cycle challenge, and contains NO suspect artifacts, shadows, lazer points or anything the hell else.
So what did I miss?

reply to post by jazz10


Some are wearing gloves and some are not?

Doesn't seem too professional I guess but is it really out of the ordinary? I am not in that field so cannot judge.

reply to post by TrueBrit

The light effect. If someone would be so kind to embed some pics then maybe you will see or maybe I'm totally wrong if I am then I oppologise now

The property he was living at is owned by a compony in the virgin isles and its named by a russian word that means new motherland. starnge.

[edit on 26-8-2010 by jonhplayer]

but does anyone wonder how many Russian Agents have come into the country under false flags?

Isent that what Anna Chapman/Anna Kushchenko did? I recall hearing that she was in the UK for a few years before she came to the US to spy on us.

In regards to this story, I cannot believe that Special Branch refuses to entertain the thought that this was job related. Let's face it, killing someone and stuffing them into a bad indicates a plan. This was no lover's spat and Special Branch needs to look into the possibility of his murder being work related.

Originally posted by the_journey_in

How soon after the numbers message did the murder take place?

The murder actually took place 'weeks ago' but due to the decomposition of the body it's quite difficult for pathologists to determine the date of death.

The poor fellows corpse was found at 4.40pm Gmt on August the 23rd - the transmission from UVB 76 was recorded at 9.35am PST on the same day.

PST is Pacific standard time which is (i think!) 8 hours behind GMT (Greenwich mean time) meaning that the transmission occurred 1 hour after the finding of Gareth Williams body.

So could the two events be connected? The timing is right. Obviously im speculating, but could the UVB message have been an information broadcast to persons unknown that the corpse had been found and Mr Williams fate had been uncovered?

Sounds to me like a Russian spy got knocked off by MI6. The siginal changed after Russia became aware of what happened and sent out a message saying do not respond to messages to this agent he is down. The same thing happened after the 10 Russian spies were caught in the US. The siginal shut down for a short time then sent out a message after the agents were caught. The ten spies in the US all had some sort of home made electronics. My guess a signal hacking device for this signal that Russia sends out. Through a few switches on thhe hacking device with the code they say in names and numbers then the hacking or filtering device will pick up a certain frequency of the signal with the message in it. It would not be a modern type device but old school due to the age of this signal.

reply to post by Silver Star


Or it could be that Mr. Williams was a double agent that had been discovered and eliminated to cover some one else’s tracks. The coded message that appears to have been sent just after his body’s discovery may have been a signal to his contacts to let them know to cover there tracks.
Very interesting stuff

reply to post by Peruvianmonk


Why would they even think terrorism? Why not espionage? Or knowing something he should not have known?

Clearly the flat that he was living in is owned or retained by his 'employer'. The assumption is that that would be MI6, but if he was on an operational secondment, it is just as likely that could be whoever or whatever he had infiltrated. But given it's proximity to Vauxhall, I would still work with the primary assumption.

The sim cards appears to me to be staged. I don't think a professional would leave that kind of calling card. It is too obvious. And wouldn't they be more likely to take the sim cards if they were indicative of his profession or cover having been blown. More along the lines of what someone might do if they wanted the Police to believe that the murder had been carried out by someone related to his professional life.

I think that the (gutter) press are being fed the 'complicated love life' stuff though. Especially now that the cause of death is now being rumoured to be suffocation. Death by sexual misadventure would be my guess at the eventual outcome. Though I do not think that that will necessarily be the truth of the matter.

His former teacher has described him as one of the best brains he has ever encountered, a brilliant mathematician and obsessed with codes and cyphers...and a loner.

If the body had been dismembered wouldn't that have been mentioned by now. And how it had been dismembered would give a good indication of motive too. That the body was placed in a hold all would suggest that whoever killed him had intended to conceal the body by disposing of it elsewhere. If dismembered leakage may have changed their mind about how feasible that would be. Or if a lone killer, i can't imagine there being that many people that can carry a man in a hold-all, even assuming that the hold-all is able to support that kind of weight. He wasn't a big guy, but fit and muscular, so even at a minimum you're looking at 10 to 12 stone.

Either way, sorry about the man's death, but it is certainly an intrigue, lots of juxtaposing factors, and of course, as per official policy, we do not even know for sure that he was working for MI6.

I get the impression from reports though, that it was his Cheltenham colleagues that made the call and not those at Vauxhall. Does anyone know if that is the case? That would only make sense if he was on operational assignment. But perhaps that is a little wishful supposing on my part. I do love a good spy story. Though I must reiterate that I am very sorry for the death of this man and sympathise with the family so that I don't come across as a completely heartless bitch.

Originally posted by jazz10
reply to post by tristar

 

One question about this if you all don't mind but its bugging me,
The photos? What's wrong with them?
Odd.

where are the photos i cant seem to find them...

reply to post by rikgrimsby


The ones they used on the news. More so the one with him on the bike. Wearing numbers. That is the one that made me notice. Looks superimposed totally different to his background.

reply to post by jazz10


there a link o the pics at all please ?

Hi all I live just down the road from this address and the local info is that the door bell entry system was an eye scanner - I also
know the person pictured in the sun delivering flowers who can verify this - there are many spies living in Pimlico its not really news....
What is news in a way is that there have been quite a few murders in Pimlico over the last few years and this is the only one to get major news coverage...