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Dr Fiona Wilcox, the Westminster Coroner, said earlier this year that she could not rule out the involvement of the security services in the death.

The ruling sparked a review of the case by Scotland Yard’s murder squad which has re-interviewed his colleagues from MI6 and taken DNA samples over the last seven months.

Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe said the force was considering a mass screening programme among the spy’s colleagues at the Secret Intelligence Service.

But he stressed that without an official suspect in the case, they could not compel anyone to take part in a DNA screening programme.

Last week the coroner at Mr Williams’ inquest said the 31-year-old, whose naked, decomposing remains were found in a locked sports holdall, had probably been killed unlawfully by a mystery third party.

Dr Fiona Wilcox also raised the prospect that another spy may have been involved in his death, remarking that it was a “legitimate line of inquiry” for police.

…

An expert on rescuing people from confined spaces has told investigators that it would be impossible to lock the bag from the inside, although the keys are not necessary to close the padlock.

Other keys were found in the flat which could have opened the padlock but were not obviously laid out.

The expert got into the bag, which is made of a synthetic rubber called Neoprene, on behalf of the police and discovered that within three minutes the temperature had reached 30 degrees Celsius and after half an hour the oxygen had run out.

A post mortem suggests Mr Williams died in the early hours of Monday August 16 but his body was not found until a week later.

He was rated as one of the best codebreakers in the business – an elite agent who fought in secret to thwart al-Qaeda terror attacks at home and abroad.

And the 31-year-old maths genius’s unique skills were also recognised by spy chiefs across the Atlantic.

Despite a dislike of flying, he regularly travelled from London to Baltimore to meet US National Security Agency officials at their Fort Meade HQ – dubbed the Puzzle Palace.

He made the trip up to four times a year “on business” for the Government’s GCHQ listening post.

Last night his uncle told how he would mysteriously disappear for up to three or four weeks at a time.

Speaking at his farmhouse at Anglesey, North Wales, Michael Hughes said: “The trips were very hush-hush. They were so secret that I only recently found out about them – and we’re a very close family. It had become part of his job in the past few years. His last trip out there was a few weeks ago, but he was regularly back and forth.”

Mr Williams’ mysterious death has shocked and dismayed officials at the NSA, which has an agreement with GCHQ to pool their signal intelligence – known as SigInt.

Fort Meade officials have been updated on the police investigation into how the keen cyclist, who was on attachment to MI6, was found dead in a sports holdall in his bathtub.

They are anxious to know if there has been any breach of global security as a result of the murder at Mr Williams’ Government-owned flat in Pimlico, Central London.

Britain now relies heavily on the NSA to help monitor phone calls, emails, texts and other communications of UK terror suspects.

When MI5 discovered the plot in 2006 by British Muslims to bomb transatlantic jets, GCHQ called in the NSA to help – and Williams worked closely alongside them.

Spy satellites tracked and secretly copied emails from mastermind Rashid Rauf in Pakistan to the two ringleaders in Walthamstow, East London. The messages were vital to the 2008 convictions of Abdullah Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain.

Mr Williams, who won a first class honours degree in maths at just 17, used to spend an average 19 days on each US trip before taking a fortnight’s holiday.

One Western intelligence source told the Mirror: “He will have had crucial high-level meetings with American intelligence officers. His job would have been crucial to the security of the UK and our interests abroad – and also to America and Europe.

“Although not particularly high up the GCHQ ladder, the importance of his role should not be underestimated. The man was a mathematical genius.”

It is thought Mr Williams may have had input into the monitoring of communications between Taliban commanders in Afghanistan – and even the tracking of serious organised crime suspects.

His death is being seen as a major blow to the security services because of his unusual and rare talents. A spokesman for Bangor University, where he completed his degree in just two years, described the fitness fanatic as “extremely gifted”.

And a former classmate at Uwchradd Bodedern secondary in Anglesey said: “Nobody ever needed a calculator when Gareth was around.”

Police investigating his death continue to focus on his personal life as they try to establish a motive.

Gareth Williams’s body was discovered in a holdall in the bath of a flat in Pimlico, central London, on Monday. Police believe he may have been dead for two weeks.

Williams, 30, worked at GCHQ, the eavesdropping and security centre, was days from completing a year-long secondment at MI6 and, it has emerged, was a regular visitor to the US national security agency that intercepts and analyses foreign communications.

However, reports that police had found evidence linking him to a male escort and that bondage equipment was found at his flat were challenged by his family.

William Hughes, 62, a Plaid Cymru councillor on the Isle of Anglesey county council and a cousin of Williams’s mother, Ellen, said there was no evidence the allegations were correct.

He said: “I don’t see any evidence of it. It never crossed my mind that Gareth was that sort of person. He left home at a young age and what happened in his private life was his business.

“When you have these rumours in the papers, it is most distressing. It is heartbreaking that he has died so young and his family have enough on their plate without having to read these stories.

“Gareth’s parents are not doing well at all. They are in a state of shock and struggling to come to terms with what has happened. They have seen what has been in the papers and they are very, very upset about these untruths.”

Hughes said it was possible the government or another agency may be trying to discredit Williams, who had been due to return to a rented flat in Cheltenham, where GCHQ is based.

The Daily Mail reported that Williams flew to the NSA, the Pentagon’s listening post, up to four times a year. He returned from his last trip a few weeks before he was found dead. The paper said US intelligence officers were poring over Williams’s work and personal life to see whether the circumstances of his death endangered US national security.

Tests are being carried out to determine whether he was asphyxiated, and whether drugs or alcohol were in his system. The tests are expected to take weeks.

Williams left school at 15, got a first-class degree in maths at 17, and a PhD at Manchester University. His former maths teacher, Geraint Williams, said: “He was the best logician and the pupil with the fastest brain I have ever met. You only had to say things once, that’s why he was so successful.”

Investigators suspect Williams may have known his killer as there was no sign of forced entry at his top-floor flat. Police have begun examining his mobile phone and financial records as well as CCTV cameras from streets and businesses surrounding his home.

William Hughes, the codebreaker’s uncle, said Mr Williams’ parents Ellen and Ian were ‘furious’ at suggestions their son has been labelled as gay and a cross dresser.

‘It is completely false,’ Mr Hughes, 62, who yesterday visited the Williams’s family home in Holyhead, North Wales.

‘They are very, very angry,’ he told the London Evening Standard.

‘The lad had been away from home for a long time — we did not know much about his private life, but it has never crossed any of our minds that he could be gay.

‘It’s not the picture they have of their son.

‘Maybe it’s the Government or somebody trying to discredit him.’

The mathematics genius, who was on secondment to MI6, was found dead in a sports holdall in the bath of his Government flat on Monday.

Scotland Yard detectives continued to investigate whether GCHQ codes expert the 31-year-old lived a secretive double life.

Police sources believe one theory is the spy’s killer may have planted a trail of clues to make it seem as though he was murdered by a gay lover.

They said gay magazines and the phone numbers of gay escort men were found in the apartment near the agent’s body.

The latest reports on Mr Williams include claims that bondage gear and equipment associated with sado-masochism had been discovered in the flat he used in Pimlico, London, while it has also been claimed he had links to a male escort.

Mr Williams lived alone and did not have a partner.

But people who knew the cycling enthusiast said he never gave any indication of being homosexual and a former landlord, who rented a flat to him for ten years, never saw him bring anyone – male or female – back to his home.

Sources close to the inquiry have dismissed some of the allegations, which raises questions over who was behind them – and why they were made.

Mr Hughes, a cousin of Mr Williams’s mother, Ellen, said: ‘I have spoken to Gareth’s parents and they are not doing well at all.

‘They are in a state of shock and struggling to come to terms with what has happened.

‘They have seen what has been in the papers and they are very, very upset about these untruths. I don’t see any evidence of it.

‘It never crossed my mind that Gareth was that sort of person. He left home at a young age and what happened in his private life was his business,’ he said.

‘When you have these rumours in the papers, it is most distressing.

‘It is heartbreaking that he has died so young and his family have enough on their plate without having to read these stories.’

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: ‘There is no question of there being a government dirty tricks campaign; we are as concerned as the family to establish the facts of Gareth’s death.

‘But the police investigation is now underway and we must await its outcome.’

The family criticisms comes as CIA agents began examining details of Mr Williams’s work and private life in the US to establish if there could be a link to his death — or a threat to national security.

The Daily Mail can reveal Mr Williams flew to the National Security Agency, the Pentagon’s listening post and the largest intelligence agency in the world, up to four times a year.

Mr Williams, who worked for the GCHQ listening station in Cheltenham but was on secondment to MI6 in London, returned from his last trip to America only a few weeks before he was found dead.

Questions also remain over why his body lay undiscovered for up to a fortnight at his £400,000 flat in a Victorian townhouse in central London, half a mile from MI6 headquarters.

The body of the keen cyclist was found in a sports holdall in the bath on Monday afternoon.

But yesterday his former landlady in Cheltenham insisted he had not been off work, intensifying the mystery surrounding his death.

Security sources could not explain why some one holding such a sensitive post was able to go ‘missing’ for such a long time before police were called.

Officers were last night examining the hard drive of a laptop computer found
in the flat.

Landlady Jenny Elliott said: ‘He definitely wasn’t on annual leave as the security services woman who came to see me after they found his body told me that he wasn’t on holiday.

‘Why did no one notice? It’s disgraceful the police weren’t alerted earlier that he was missing. His murder is devastating and I just hope the person who did it is caught.

Mrs Elliott, 71, who rented Mr Williams a self-contained flat attached to her home in Cheltenham, said he would often travel to America for weeks at a time three or four times a year either with a male colleague or on his own.

His uncle, Mr Hughes, who lives in Anglesey, North Wales where Mr Williams grew up, said: ‘He’d been making the trips for a couple of years.

‘I only found this out very recently and I do not know where in America he was staying or who he was working for out there, but I do know it was in relation to his job.

‘His last trip was this summer. He returned from the States just a couple of weeks or so before he died.’

A U.S. intelligence source said there was ‘no panic’ yet within the National
Security Agency and people who knew Mr Williams were still to be questioned.

The source said: ‘The strong implication is that his death is not connected
to his intelligence work, though this could change at any time. They are understandably concerned about what has happened and are keeping a close eye on developments.’

Police are still waiting for the results of toxicology tests which could shed light on how he died.

Police have also asked a pathologist to check whether Mr Williams’s neck was broken, which would suggest a professional hit, the sources said

A postmortem examination proved inconclusive and now they must wait for toxicology results to find out whether drugs, alcohol, poisoning or suffocation were the cause of death.

Sources say he was not stabbed, shot, strangled or beaten. Scotland Yard is describing the death as ‘suspicious and unexplained’.

A former MI6 officer said that intelligence chiefs are furious that details of Mr Williams’s work as a spy had been leaked.

Harry Ferguson said senior officials at the Secret Intelligence Service wanted to suppress any information about his work and to simply refer to him as a ‘civil servant’ when news of the murder was made public.

‘They hoped details of his role could all be kept covered up. It is a standard
process. Blurting it out has caused a lot of unnecessary embarrassment, risk and upheaval to the SIS.

‘If it had been managed properly it could have been kept quiet. He could simply have been described as a government worker or civil servant.

‘They are especially frustrated that it has emerged that not only was he was working in GCHQ, but also on secondment to MI6.’

Mr Ferguson said secret service bosses feared that the ‘nightmare scenario’ had come true when the body was discovered.

‘One of the concerns about having such a high profile building as the SIS does is that, while staff can be protected when inside the building, there a significant risk that they could be followed home,’ he said.

‘It is the sort of thing that a small group of Islamists or other terror network would clearly be capable of doing.’

He said the apparent ‘ritualistic’ scene at Mr Williams’ flat, with his mobile phone and SIM cards carefully laid out, also suggested it could have been carried out by a foreign agency to send a message.
The reclusive maths genius and rumours of cross-dressing and blackmail

From a tender age, it was clear to his teachers at Morswyn primary school on Anglesey that there was something special about Gareth Williams.

A talented pupil, he was fast-tracked through education, earning his maths GCSE aged nine while most of his contemporaries were still grappling with basic arithmetic.

By 13 he had secured his A-levels and had a degree in maths by 17.

He was known as ‘the maths genius’ by fellow pupils and possessed the ‘fastest brain’ his teachers had encountered. But his academic excellence came at a price.

Forced to study with children several years older than himself, he found it hard to make friends and was last night described by former school mates as ‘socially naive’ and ‘introverted’.

Detectives were last night investigating whether this shy, private side to his nature made him vulnerable to blackmail amid lurid claims that he was a secret cross-dresser.

Geraint Williams, his maths teacher at secondary school, recalled how young Gareth was so clever that he sat his intermediate maths GCSE, gaining a grade B, while still at primary school, before being moved up to Bodedern Secondary School, Holyhead, a year ahead of his peers.

Within months of his arrival he took his advanced GCSE, scoring an A grade, and received top marks in A-level maths and computer studies two years later, when he was 13.

His teachers were initially at a loss at how best to educate him.Their solution was to move him up two years and enrol the youngster, then aged15, on a three-year maths degree course at his local university at Bangor, which heattained in just two years with first class honours.

Teacher Mr Williams said: ‘I’d heard about this amazing pupil who had done his GCSE at primary school and got a B at intermediate level.

‘He took the higher level GCSE in a couple of months and got an A. It was a problem for us – what could we do with him? We got him to follow A-levels and he did A-level maths and computer science in the third-form. He achieved As in them.

‘That was a big problem because he was still only 13, so we contacted Bangor University and he followed the first year of maths degree course.’

The teacher added: ‘He was the best logician and the pupil with the fastest brain I have ever met. You only had to say things once, that’s why he was so successful. He could understand things immediately. He was also extremely good with computer science.

‘Gareth was also a very nice lad, quiet and unassuming. It’s very sad.’

After leaving Bangor University at 17, Mr Williams went on to study for a PhD at Manchester University before enrolling in postgraduate certificate at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, in 2000.

He dropped out a year later, but last night friends speculated that he left afterbeing taken on by the Secret Services, which traditionally recruit from Oxbridge.

They said it was an open secret that Mr Williams worked at GCHQ, but added that any notion that the quiet, unassuming boy lead a James Bond spy lifestyle was laughable.

One close friend, who attended primary school with Mr Williams, said: ‘Gareth was a super, super brain. Beyond intelligent, a very, very clever guy.

‘He was hand-picked while at Cambridge by the services, they want the cream of the crop and he certainly was that.

‘It was common knowledge that he worked at GCHQ, but any notion that he led a James Bond style lifestyle is rubbish.

‘Those kind of people have to be able to blend in, but Gareth wasn’t like that, he was very different.

‘He was introverted and found it difficult to make friends, but he was a lovely, lovely bloke. It is such a tragic waste of such a talented life.’

The dead man’s parents, Ian, an engineer at Wylfa power station, and mother Ellen, who worked in education, were on holiday in America celebrating their joint 50th birthdays when news of their son’s death broke.Last night they were said to be ‘devastated’.

Another former school friend, Dylan Parry, 34, said he was ‘dumfounded’ by the murder.

‘Gareth was the last person I would have believed would be involved in the murkier elements of life,’ said Mr Parry, of Holyhead. ‘He really was about as far from a James Bond figure as it’s possible to imagine.

‘Gareth was introverted and socially awkward. He wasn’t dashing or cavalier or a charmer, although he was extremely nice in a quiet way.

‘There has been a lot of speculation about his sexuality, but he was so introverted as to be asexual.‘

He wasn’t able to form relationships because he was so obsessed with his maths studies.

‘We nicknamed him the maths genius because he was so clever. He was so naive, he was someone people could easily take advantage of.

The body of Gareth Williams, who was working for British intelligence agency MI6, was found stuffed in a bag in the bath at his apartment in Pimlico, central London on Monday.

Detectives believe he may have lain undiscovered for two weeks at the residence, which is just a few hundred yards away from the MI6 headquarters across the River Thames at Vauxhall.

Women’s clothing that would have fit him was found in the apartment – and the 31-year-old was known to meet men in the capital’s gay hotspots of Vauxhall Cross and Soho in the West End, according to The Sun.

Mr Williams was working for MI6 on a one-year posting and was due to return to his regular job at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) listening station in Cheltenham at the start of next month.

Detectives told London’s Daily Telegraph that they believe he might have had a violent row with a lover over his decision to return to GCHQ.

However, police have not ruled out the possibility that the murder could be linked to his secret intelligence work.

Security services fear that his murderer could have taken classified material – possibly held on a laptop or mp3 player – which could be sold on to Britain’s enemies, according to The Daily Mail.

There was no sign of a break-in at the flat, nothing had been stolen, and Mr Williams’ mobile phone was found with several SIM cards neatly laid out beside it.

Initial reports suggest Mr Williams had been knifed several times, dismembered then crammed into a large sports duffel bag. But an autopsy report proved “inconclusive” and stabbing was ruled out as the cause of death, according to Sky News.

Detectives are now studying whether he was strangled, asphyxiated or drugged.

The spys family said Mr Williams was a solitary figure who would not discuss his work with them.

William Hughes, a close relative, said: “I knew he was working in London doing something. He would never talk about his work and it felt rude to ask really.”

The apartment he was living in is thought to belong to the intelligence services, according to The Sun. Ownership of the building was hidden behind a private company, New Rodina, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands. Rodina means “motherland” in Russian.

The man, named locally as Gareth Williams, is understood to have been employed as a communications worker at GCHQ, the Government’s “listening post” in Cheltenham, Glos.

It is believed Mr Williams, who was in his thirties, was on secondment at the headquarters of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, in Vauxhall, just across the Thames from where his body was found.

He had apparently been due to return home to Gloucestershire before he was murdered.

The grim discovery was made after police were called to the top floor flat in Pimlico, Central London, following reports that the occupant had not been seen for some time.

Mr Williams’ mobile telephone and sim cards had been carefully laid out elsewhere in the flat.

The street of multimillion-pound Georgian terraced homes remained cordoned off this morning and police officers stood outside No 36, which is divided into three flats.

Michael Howard, the former Conservative Party leader, is among a host of politicians and bankers who live on the street.

Mr Williams rented a flat in Cheltenham from retired office worker Jenny Elliott, 71, for ten years until just over a year ago when he moved to London.

He phoned Mrs Elliott in April to ask for his old room back after getting a transfer back to the town.

“Gareth was a very likeable person who didn’t really have any friends as such,” Mrs Elliott said.

“He was an extremely intelligent person but would not talk about his job as it was a secret, on account of working for GCHQ. All he told me was it was something to do with codes,” she added.

Neighbours in Pimlico also spoke of their shock.

Jason Hollands, 41, a City worker, who also lives nearby, said: “It’s truly gruesome – this is a very mixed area of bankers and politicians. I’ve spoken to the next-door neighbour, who knew nothing.”

Rob Mills, 35, who lives two doors away, said: “It’s shocking. I’m told the man lived at the top-floor flat but we haven’t ever seen him. It’s not like you’d tell your neighbours if you were a spy.”

A Met police spokesman said: “Officers were called to reports of a suspicious death at around 4.40pm today.

“They attended a top floor flat in Alderney Street and gained entry and found the body of a man in his 30s. He has yet to be identified.”

Counter-terrorist and security service officers are helping detectives in the inquiry.

A postmortem is being conducted amid reports he had been stabbed several times and his body was decomposing when found by police.

Reports suggested he had worked at GCHQ, the government’s secret listening service in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and had been on secondment to MI6, the secret intelligence service. It is thought he could have been dead for up to two weeks.

This morning, the man’s former landlady, Jenny Elliott, said he had lived in a flat in her house near Cheltenham for 10 years while working nearby.

On Monday night, she said, a woman identifying herself as the Foreign Office’s head of employee assistance visited her to ask if she had heard from him lately or knew where he was.

Police found his body on Monday afternoon when they were called to his flat in Pimlico after reports he had not been seen for some time. Inside the property officers found the man’s mobile phone and a collection of sim cards laid out, the Daily Mail reported.

The location of the five-storey townhouse, a mile from MI6 headquarters, fuelled speculation that the man was working there before his death.

Elliott, 71, said the man had been due to move back into her house next week after spending a year living and working in London.

“He was due to come back to me on 3 September,” she said. “He rang me and said he would be back then. He said, ‘Can I come back?’ and I said sure. I hadn’t heard anything else until a lady from the Foreign Office called at six o’clock to say that they hadn’t had a sighting or a whereabouts and had we heard anything.”

Elliott said he was a quiet man who enjoyed cycling and running and kept himself to himself.

“This awful thing is happening and he was a lovely man, very well-mannered and very likeable,” she said.

“He was very clever and had been to Cambridge and had a very important job at the Foreign Office. Although he didn’t belong to me, I was quite proud of him. It’s like losing one of my own children.”

Sources close to the investigation said the cause of death remained unclear.

“The suggestion there is terrorism or national security links to this case is pretty low down the list of probabilities,” a source said.

A GCHQ spokesman said: “There is an ongoing police investigation and it would not be appropriate for us to comment at all as this is ongoing.

“We have nothing to add. Our policy is not to comment on individual members of staff or whether they are staff.”

A police source said the man had not been formally identified, adding that while his employment documentation suggested he had worked for the secret service, “he might have been an air conditioning technician rather than a spy”.

He added: “If he really was a spy, you imagine someone would have reported him missing rather sooner.”

Scotland Yard has launched a murder inquiry, in conjunction with counterterrorist and security service officials.

The street was cordoned off last night as forensic teams searched the property and surrounding areas for clues as to how and why the man was killed.

A black private ambulance parked outside the house before 9.30pm. A few minutes later forensics officers, accompanied by police officers, removed the corpse in a red body bag.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan police said: “Detectives are investigating a suspicious death following the discovery of the body of a man in a central London flat. At around 1640 hours on Monday 23 August officers attended the flat, on the top floor of a property in Alderney Street, Westminster, following reports that the occupant had not been seen for some time.

“Officers gained entry and found the body of the man, believed to be aged in his 30s. He was pronounced dead at the scene.”

Scotland Yard refused to comment on the dead man’s identity until next of kin had been informed. A spokesman said the postmortem was still under way and could go on “for some time”.

No arrests have been made.

The street of Georgian terraced homes remained cordoned off this morning and police officers stood outside No 36, which is divided into three flats.

Curtains were drawn in the top-floor flat, where it was believed the murder took place.

Many politicians and bankers live on the street, neighbours said.

One local resident said police had told her that the man could have been murdered a fortnight ago.

Land Registry documents reveal that the block is owned by a private company, New Rodina.

Its details are hidden because it is registered in the British Virgin Islands and is not listed with Companies House.

The word “rodina” means “motherland” in Russian and Bulgarian.

If reports of the deceased man being a spy are true, the murder will be the highest-profile killing in the UK of someone linked to the secret services since that of Alexander Litvinenko.

The body of Gareth Williams, 31, was discovered stuffed in a large sports bag in his bath in a flat just a few hundred yards from the headquarters of MI6.

It is understood Mr Williams had been stabbed, possibly several times, and his body was decomposing when it was found.

Elsewhere in the top-floor flat – in a bizarre ritualistic scene – his mobile telephone and a collection of SIM cards were carefully laid out.

Scotland Yard has launched a murder inquiry into the grim find in Pimlico, Central London. Detectives have told local residents today that the murder may have taken place two weeks ago.

Mr Williams was employed as a communications officer at the Government’s ‘ listening post’ – better known as GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

But it is thought he was on secondment to the headquarters at MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, near the flat.

MI6 gathers secret information about Britain’s overseas enemies, making the spy a possible target of terrorists.

Mr Williams was described by neighbours as mild-mannered and a keen cyclist. He joined the University of Cambridge in 2000 to undertake a postgraduate certificate in advanced studies in mathematics but dropped out.

A spokeswoman said he was a member of St Catharine’s College but left without completing the qualification the next year.

The course is described as ‘demanding’ and normally only accepts students with first-class degrees in physics, mathematics or engineering.

He lived in a street where houses sell for more than £1million, and it has been cordoned off at both ends since Monday night. Access is being granted only to residents.

The street remained cordoned off this morning and police officers stood outside No 36, which is divided into three flats.

Land Registry documents revealed the block at number 36 is owned by a private company, New Rodina.

Its details are hidden because it is registered in the British Virgin Islands and is not listed with Companies House.

The word rodina means ‘motherland’ in Russian and Bulgarian.

The property was bought for £675,250 in 2000 with a mortgage from the Royal Bank of Scotland and has been remortgaged twice, in September 2005 and February 2006.

The documents revealed the owner operated through a law firm known as Park Nelson. The firm once occupied a rented office block in Bell Yard, off Fleet Street, but no longer appears to exist.

Curtains were drawn in the top-floor flat, where it was believed the attack took place.

Public documents revealed that several current and former residents of the freehold block have links to London and Cheltenham.

Police continued to scour the two-floor flat for evidence today and cordons remained in place on the prestigious street where two former home secretaries live.

Ex-Tory leader Michael Howard and Sir Leon Brittan are among a host of politicians and bankers who have homes there, residents said.

Mr Howard, who lives several doors down the road, was at home when the body was taken away by forensic officers, one resident, Andy Perkins, said.

Neighbour Laura Houghton said Mr Williams was an ‘extremely friendly’ man.

The 30-year-old secretary said: ‘I have spoken to him only once. I met him in the entrance hall of the set of flats because of a boring plant issue about a year ago.

‘He was extremely friendly and had a Welsh accent.’

She said he had an athletic build, and added: ‘He was not especially tall. He had medium to short brown hair.’

Mrs Houghton added: ‘His windows were always shut and curtains were often closed. I could never tell if anyone was in.

‘It was strange that we never saw him come and go. I just assumed he worked away.

‘The first I heard of anything happening was when the police knocked on my door and asked me if I had heard anything happening. I told them the walls were so thick that I couldn’t hear a thing.

‘All they told me was that there had been a serious incident. I’m amazed it’s taken this long to all come out.’

A landlady who rented Mr Williams a flat in Cheltenham, said: ‘He was polite and mild-mannered and wouldn’t hurt a fly. He was forever off on bike rides but never really had friends around.

‘Sometimes you could hear tapes whirring from his flat. It must have been audio cassettes he used for work. He never told me what they were.’

Eileen Booth, 73, who lives opposite, said detectives told her the murder may have taken place two weeks ago.

She said: ‘A few years ago, I would definitely have known who it was that had been killed.

‘Detectives came round and asked for our eye colour and height. They said this probably happened two weeks ago.’

Rob Mills, 35, who lives two doors away, said today: ‘We’ve got two children – it’s shocking.

‘I’m told the man lived at the top-floor flat but we haven’t ever seen him. It’s not like you’d tell your neighbours if you were a spy.’

Jason Hollands, 41, a City worker, who also lives nearby, said: ‘It’s truly gruesome – this is a very mixed area of bankers and politicians. I’ve spoken to the next-door neighbour, who knew nothing.’

The case is being investigated by officers from the Murder Squad with assistance from their counter-terrorist and security service colleagues. No arrests have been made.

Forensic teams are continuing to search for clues at the five-storey terraced townhouse

A Met Police spokesman said: ‘Officers were called to reports of a suspicious death at 4.40pm on Monday. They attended a top floor flat in Alderney Street and gained entry and found the body of a man in his 30s.’

One resident said: ‘My neighbours said it was a stabbing.

It sounds like it was really gruesome.’ Scotland Yard said no cause of death was known. A post-mortem examination is due today.

A Downing Street spokesman refused to comment, saying: ‘Any potential case is a matter for the police.’

Details of the incident will be contained in the Prime Minister’s intelligence briefing which will be handed to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg today. David Cameron is also expected to be kept abreast of developments.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘There is an ongoing police investigation.

‘It is long-standing Government policy not to confirm or deny that any individual works for the intelligence agencies.’

Patrick Mercer, former chairman of the Commons counter-terrorism subcommittee, said: ‘This underlines the danger that our outstanding security services have to face on a minute-by-minute basis every single day.’

The last spy to have been killed on British soil was former Russian Federal Security Service officer Alexander Litvinenko in November 2006. He was poisoned with polonium-210.

Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov was killed by an assassin who used an umbrella to fire a ricin pellet into his leg as he crossed Waterloo Bridge in September 1978.

A spokesman said the body was yet to be formally identified.