Has this Kremlin defector solved the riddle of the spy in the bag?
Years of intrigue – now a breathtaking twist
America and London. Major Boris says Moscow had undertaken psychological profiling of the computer expert, and having monitored his personal telephone calls, too, had determined that Williams was ‘soft’ and ‘flexible’, and would be likely to co-operate in order to keep details of his private life away from his superiors and his family.
But Williams, apparently, did not take kindly to this approach when Lukas attempted to threaten him — and blurted out that he knew the identity of the only man who could have provided Lukas with certain details about his private l i fe: his former colleague nicknamed ‘Orion’ at GCHQ.
After Lukas left Williams’s flat, apologising for the confusion and attempting to play down the recruitment operation, he contacted his spy masters.
Fearing their mole inside GCHQ would be exposed when Williams returned from leave to MI6 the following day, a plan was hastily hatched to deal with the ‘imminent threat’ posed by Williams.
According to Major Boris, Lukas returned later that evening to Williams’s flat, bringing a bottle of wine and saying he wanted to apologise for the ‘confusion’ about his earlier visit. But there was nothing sociable about the guest’s real intentions.
The wine had been spiked with drugs, which meant Williams lost consciousness shortly after drinking some of it. In order to finish him off, Williams was injected inside the ear with a poison mixed with plant extracts and a chemical called diphenhydramine, a fatal compound which breaks down quickly and is difficult to detect.
The project, according to Boris, was overseen by the Kremlin’s operational unit called Zaslon — which translates as ‘blockage’ — a team of specialists in ‘wet jobs’.
The plan had been to remove the body, but Lukas and another Zaslon operative were worried they would be spotted if they tried to move it out to a vehicle waiting in such a busy London street.
Instead, says Major Boris, the corpse was placed in the red sports holdall and left in the bath. The heating was turned up. ‘This was done to get rid of traces of the deadly toxin before the body was found,’ he says, referring to the fact that the breakdown of the body happens faster in warm temperates.
It is all dramatic stuff — but the obvious question is how does the former KGB officer claim to know more about the case than the British security services?
He says he became interested in the case only by accident — and contacted a high- l evel source within the KGB with whom he remains on friendly terms. They have helped him piece together a picture of the events he describes.
He says that having moved to London, he noticed Russian diplomatic cars — they use the numberplate prefix 251 — regularly cruising along the streets where he lived in Notting Hill.
Convinced the Russians were coming to kill him, he was rehoused by the British at another property not far from the flat occupied by Williams. There, he again noticed cars being used by Russian intelligence agents — and thought they were tailing him.
His fear was understandable: other Russian defectors to the UK have met sinister ends, including Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned with a radioactive substance while drinking adulterated tea in a London hotel, and Alexander Perepilichny, believed to have been poisoned with a rare plant after he collapsed and died at his home in Surrey last year.
It sounds an incredible story, and it could be that Major Boris is unnecessarily paranoid or has some unknown motive for suggesting that a Russian agent killed Williams.
Whatever the case, the major insists that he is telling the truth, and angrily denies suggestions that he is still working for the Russians, and spreading disinformation to cause panic that there is a mole at GCHQ. He points out that such was his falling out with the KGB that one Moscow newspaper printed his photograph, with a sniper sight overlaid on it, revealing there was an order to kill him.
Certainly, the family of Gareth Williams have never believed he died alone. ‘There is a high probability there was a third party present in the flat at the same time,’ says Anthony O’Toole, a lawyer for the family. ‘The unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services.’
Nigel West, t he author and espionage expert dubbed the ‘unofficial historian of the secret services’, dismisses‘ wild ’ theories about how Williams met his death, saying the spy was fixated by claustrophilia — a medical term for a desire to be held in confined spaces, usually for sexual gratification.
‘He could shut the bag from inside by pinching the fabric together to fasten the clasp,’ says Mr West. ‘He was into cross dressing and had a series of bizarre habits. You don’t kill people by putting them in bags — you put two bullets into the back of their head.’
Perhaps he is right. But isn’t there something compelling about the account from the turncoat KGB officer?
And if he really is onto something, could a Russian mole called ‘Orion’ still be at large inside Britain’s most sensitive spy centre?