British spy found murdered in London flat
A man believed to have been a British spy has been found murdered in his London flat.
By Heidi Blake and Duncan Gardham
Published: 7:30AM BST 25 Aug 2010
The body of the GCHQ worker, who was in his 30s, was found stuffed into a large sports bag that had been left in a bath. His mobile telephone and sim cards had been carefully laid out elsewhere in the flat.
<!-- BEFORE ACI --> Scotland Yard began a murder inquiry after making the discovery at the flat in Pimlico, central London, on Tuesday night. The dead man was understood to have been employed as a communications worker at GCHQ, the Government’s “listening post” in Cheltenham, Glos.
But it is believed he may have been on secondment at the headquarters of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, in Vauxhall, just across the Thames from where his body was found. Police forced their way into the top-floor flat in a five-storey town house at 4.40pm on Monday.
The street, where homes sell for more than £1 million, was cordoned off overnight while forensic experts examined the scene. The body, which was badly decomposed, is understood to have lain undiscovered in the flat for some time. It has not yet been formally identified and sources said the man's parents are not in the country.
Access to the street is being granted only to residents. A neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: “A police officer came to my house and asked if we had noticed anything suspicious in the last 10 days, so I think that the body has been there for a while. There have been forensic people in and out since yesterday.”
The cause of death has not been disclosed. A post mortem will be carried out on Tuesday. 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. The last spy to have been killed on British soil wasAlexander Litvinenko, the former Russian Federal Security Service officer, who died of polonium poisoning in November 2006.
