Death of Gareth Williams: MI 6 Agent

Once again, I visit the death of an MI6 agent and note certain disquieting facts.

Despite all attempts by the various intelligence agencies involved to portray him as a nerdy technician rather than field agent, it is clear that he had been trained for operations and, in fact, had been conducting field operations.

As someone tasked to any field assignment it is necessary to have a cover story and as all good cover stories go, it is sensible to have depth and breadth to them so that any character appears to have a variety of interests and activities and does not appear to be one-dimensional and therefore a suspected mole. Those who look for moles or intruders are apt to be impressed by discoveries of non-mainstream interests. The famed "cover story within a cover story" is far more believable than a shallow, single-dimensional cover story that is easily blown.

To what extent the decedent's visitations to cross-dressing sites, auto-eroticism sites, bondage sites, etc. represented an actual interest versus a career-motivated affectation is unknown and to a great extent unknowable.

It is true that twenty thousand pounds is a rather substantial investment in ladies undergarments but it is also clear that a one time purchase of such items is more suggestive of a cover story than an ongoing interest persisting over the course of many years.

Exploration of a variety of extreme websites is a very sensible way to build a complex cover story for later adventures in the world of Hackers. Hackers who discover one of their number has various cross-dressing interests and auto-eroticism interests would be less likely to view him as a possible government agent sent to penetrate their network.

As in any forensic investigation, it is often impossible to exclude an option it is only possible to term it unlikely. People often have extreme skills or unusual knowledge: regurgitated keys, cat burglar climbing skills, lock picking skills, contortionist routines, etc. all come to mind as items frequently possessed by the general population and therefore unable to be rejected by a coroner.

A person who wished to advance his career by becoming accepted in the world of auto-eroticism and cross dressing may well have applied himself to some fairly interesting situations. Not only is the self entry into the holdall physically possible but there is a measure of evidence to indicate that self entry into the holdall may have been a particularly valuable career skill for him to acquire as it transcends the world of auto eroticism and extends to ordinary burglary skills.

It is impossible for a coroner to rule that self entry into the holdall did not take place. We may find comfort in the fact that we ourselves would never attempt such a thing and that if we were indeed to attempt such a dangerous contortion we would do so under conditions of greater safety, but such thoughts are of no use to the coroner. We can think the intelligence services played a role and that forensic evidence was tampered with. It is a comfort to us to think that but a coronial inquiry is not an exercise in intellectual comfort.

Would the appropriate coroner's verdict be Death by misadventure? No. Death by patriotism seems much more appropriate.

Please note that the coroner is of the opinion that the visitations to the alternative lifestyle sites were brief and sporadic and therefore should be given little weight. I accord the sites greater weight due to the assumed goal in such visitations to the alternative sites. Everything is strange about the case. Even the initially much sought after and now discounted Mediterranean Couple has ties to the Italian embassy so the intrigue seems to never stop.

MI-6: A Life and A Death in the Shadows. Gareth Williams.

I realize there is never going to be much information available regarding the murder of any MI-6 agent, but I wonder about this thousands of pounds worth of ladies undergarments involved in the Gareth Williams murder. A peculiar hobby? An interest in fashion design? An undercover assignment? I don't know. I do wonder, however, why they were all new. If it were a hobby such as wood working, you could go into his garage and find new tools and old tools. An artist would have a mixture of new paints or brushes and old ones and so on. No hobbyist sinks several grand into anything at once. He builds up over a period of time. He has favorite items and momentos that he hangs on to even though they are past their prime as to usefulness. Nothing about the questionable items the decedent had amongst his effects rings true. Something is quite terribly amiss. And the truth is being suppressed.

With all those bras and panties being brand new, there has to have been some ulterior motive involved. He may indeed have had an unusual lifestyle, but if he had an interest in ladies underwear why is it the items in his possession were all brand new and there was not one that was old. Most hobbyists of any sort acquire various items related to their hobbies over an extended period of time, yet when he was murdered the MI-6 agent had a host of unusual items but each and everyone was suspiciously brand new. I am informed that news reports using the term "new" may have meant apparently unworn but I am also informed that the items in question were in fact new, that is they were both unworn and also of a recent style and recent manufacture. So if the presence of the garments is meant to indicate he possessed certain interests it would seem strange that these interests only arose in the few months prior to his murder.

The evidence indicates rather strongly that the purchases were to be gifts to his sister who had the intention of starting a fashion business.

The intense heat of the apartment indicates someone wanted decomposition to be accelerated which of course suggests a murder rather than death by misadventure.

Recent allegations of working on tying Putin to financial transfers may indeed be correct but are unsupported by any evidence.