MI6 withheld data in Brit spy's death, inquest told

LONDON, May 1 (UPI) -- The British intelligence service MI6 failed to provide certain evidence to police investigating the death of spy Gareth Williams, an inquest heard Tuesday.

Williams, a math prodigy employed as a code breaker for the British government's foreign intelligence section, was found naked and dead inside a large and locked sports equipment bag in his London home in 2010.

On what was expected to be the final day of an inquest into his death in Westminster Coroner's Court, it was revealed MI6 failed to hand over nine memory sticks from Williams' computers to police, that it examined his other "electronic media" without informing police and that an inventory of his belongings at work was never passed on to investigators, The Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire of the London Metropolitan Police office leading the investigation said she would have expected the information to be provided her when Williams' body was first discovered, but Tuesday morning, at the inquest, was the first time she had heard of MI6's withholding information, the British newspaper said.

Experts at the inquest spent Monday offering conflicting theories on the cause of Williams' death, speculating he entered the equipment bag willingly and without coercion, even though it was locked from the outside, and died of a carbon-dioxide buildup in his bloodstream or a poison which disappeared from his system during his body's decomposition.