STORY: "'Spy in bag' Gareth Williams was 'murdered by Russian hitmen after sexual photo blackmail plot,' by reporter Lucy Clarke-Billings, published by The Telegraph on October 24, 2015.
SUB-HEADING: "Former major and intelligence officer Boris Karpichkov claims he knows the truth behind the MI6 spy's death."
PHOTO CAPTION: "British code breaker Gareth Williams."
GIST: "Gareth Williams, the MI6 spy whose body was found in a bag, was murdered by Russian hitmen who blackmailed him with compromising sexual photographs, according to a former KGB major. The former major and intelligence officer Boris Karpichkov, who was
exiled from Russia and now lives in the UK with a new identity, claimed
Mr Williams was given a lethal injection in the ear and put into the
holdall by Russian operatives. Mr
Williams' naked, decomposing body was found in the bath of his flat in
Pimlico, London, in August 2010, after colleagues noticed he had not
turned up for work. The locked handles of the holdall had been fastened with Velcro and there was no sign of him struggling to escape. No finger, foot, palm prints or DNA belonging to Mr Williams were found
on the rim of the bath, padlock or zipper and he was not wearing any
gloves. The key to the padlock was underneath his body, which
was curled into a foetal position inside the bag, and the heating in the
flat had been turned up, even though it was the middle of the summer. There were also no signs of a break in and what followed was a gruelling and fundamentally inconclusive three-year investigation into his death. A coroner ruled in 2012 that the spy was “probably killed unlawfully”,
but also ruled it unlikely his death will ever be “satisfactorily
explained”. But despite the result of the inquest and the
mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, the police concluded in
2012 that Mr Williams most likely got into the bag by himself and died
after failing to get out again. However, William MacKay, a
confined spaces expert who gave evidence at the inquest, disagreed, and
Nr Williams’ family have maintained that he was murdered. The interior of Gareth Willaims' flat on Alderney Street, London Photo: PA At the same time as his inquest, there were reports that he died in a solo sex game gone wrong, while £20,000 worth of women’s clothing had been found in his flat. Mr Williams was also reported to have visited bondage sex websites and was seen browsing for ladies’ clothes at exclusive stores in central London.........Mr Karpichkov served in
Russian intelligence for more than a decade, reaching the rank of KGB
major where he was privy to Kremlin secrets at the highest level."
