The death of a British spy -- whose body was found in a padlocked bag in a bathtub in his London apartment -- may never be explained but was likely a criminal act, the coroner investigating the case said Wednesday.

The coroner, Fiona Wilcox, said that it was a "legitimate line of inquiry" that other spies were involved in the death of Gareth Williams, 31, a member of the U.K.'s Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, according to a report in The Guardian newspaper.

Wilcox said the spy was likely killed either by suffocation or poisoning in a "criminally meditated act."

She also said she did not think Williams' passing interest in sexual bondage was behind his death, The Telegraph newspaper said.

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The body of British spy Gareth Williams was found in a bag in his bathtub.

Wilcox said that if Williams, a math prodigy who worked as a code breaker, had got into the bag by himself, foot and fingerprints would have been found around the bath, the paper reported. 

"It is unlikely this death will ever be satisfactorily explained," she said, according to the media reports.

Spy death inquiry looks at bondage link

The coroner also said the large number of women's clothes in the apartment did not show that Williams was a transvestite, The Telegraph noted. The case, she said, had produced in "endless speculation but little evidence."

However, she added that the circumstances of the death "immediately raised the possibility of foul play," according to the Guardian.

UK cops close to arrest over British spy found dead in a bag?

Williams' body was found in his apartment in Pimlico, London, in August 2010.

Metropolitan Police / Reuters

A combination of still photographs taken from video shows a man trying to lock himself in a holdall in this undated image received from the Metropolitan Police in London on April 27.

A forensic pathologist, Benjamin Swift, testified Monday that Williams probably suffocated or was poisoned, saying a precise cause of death could not be established because the body had decomposed. Williams died more than a week before his body was found.

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Other experts have said that it was highly likely that another person, or two, were involved.

The case has spawned any number of conspiracy theories that Williams may have been assassinated by foreign agents or terrorists.

MI6 has said it believes his death was  nothing to do with his work.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Andrew Winning / Reuters file

Ian and Ellen Williams and Cerri Subbe, the mother, father and sister of British MI6 agent Gareth Williams, left Westminster Coroner's Court in London on April 23.

Gareth Williams, the British cyberspy who was found dead in a padlocked duffel bag, probably suffocated or was poisoned, a forensic pathologist testified Monday.

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Williams' body was found in the bag in the bathtub of his apartment in London in August 2010. The unusual of his death — Williams, 31, a math prodigy who worked as a code breaker for the British spy service MI6, was discovered naked and showing no signs of a struggle — has transfixed Britain as details of Williams' transvestism and sexual fantasies have emerged.

Speaking at an official inquest into Williams' death in August 2010, the pathologist, Benjamin Swift, said the precise cause of death couldn't be pinpointed because the body was badly decomposed after having been in the bag for more than a week before it was found, The Guardian reported. But he said  asphyxiation or poisoning were the "foremost contenders."

Spy death inquiry looks at bondage link

Other experts have testified that it was highly likely that another person, or even two, was involved in the case, citing the near-impossibility of Williams' being able to lock himself into the bag.

UK cops close to arrest over British spy found dead in a bag?

That has spawned any number of conspiracy theories that Williams may have been assassinated by foreign agents or terrorists. But MI6 said it believed his death had nothing to do with his work or that it had covered it up.

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JERUSALEM - A former Israeli spymaster has branded the country's leaders unfit to tackle the Iranian nuclear program because of what he called the "messianic feelings" behind their threats to launch a pre-emptive war on Iran.

Other veterans have come out against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently, but the criticism from former domestic intelligence chief Yuval Diskin was especially strong.

"I have no faith in the prime minister, nor in the defense minister," Diskin, who stepped down as head of the Shin Bet a year ago, said in a speech partly broadcast by Israel Radio on Saturday.

"I really don't have faith in a leadership that makes decisions out of messianic feelings."

The catastrophic terms with which Netanyahu and Barak describe the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran have stirred concern in Israel and abroad of a possible strike against a uranium enrichment program Iran says has peaceful ends.

World powers have been trying to curb Tehran through sanctions and negotiations that are due to resume next month.

Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News

Although Israel has threatened a pre-emptive strike if diplomacy fails, some experts believe that could be a bluff to keep up pressure on Iran, making it harder to interpret the swirl of comments from the security establishment.

Diskin's remarks came days after Israel's military chief, Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, said Iran was "very rational" and unlikely to build a bomb in the face of world opposition, apparently undermining the case for a strike.

By using the language of religious fervor that Israelis usually associate with Islamist foes, Diskin appeared even more damning of Netanyahu and Barak, who have often crafted strategy alone and whose relationship dates back to service in an elite commando unit four decades ago.

The former head of Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence service, Meir Dagan, has ridiculed the idea of a strike on Iran.

Diskin, who spoke on Friday, said he was not necessarily opposed to Israel attacking Iran's nuclear sites pre-emptively, though he cited experts who argue that such an action might backfire by accelerating Tehran's quest for a bomb.

Yet going to war was not a job for Netanyahu, a second-term premier, nor Barak, Israel's most decorated soldier, Diskin said.

"I have seen them up close," he said. "They are not people who I personally, at least, trust to be able to lead Israel into an event on such a scale, and to extricate it."

The Prime Minister's Office and Defence Ministry had no immediate response to Diskin's remarks. A Netanyahu deputy, Silvan Shalom, rebuked the former spymaster and sought to assure Israelis that democratic process guided the government strategy.

"Not everyone thinks the same thing. This is not a decision that would be made by two people," he told Israel Radio.

"Ultimately, with all due respect to everyone, the one who is more important on this matter is the military chief of staff," Shalom said, referring to the general whose comments had appeared at odds with the official line.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, but Western nations as well as Israel fear it plans to build a bomb. 

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British spy Gareth Williams was “dead or unconscious” and was almost certainly placed in a sports bag by another person, an inquiry into his death in London was told Friday, it is reported.

Expert Peter Faulding tried to re-create the code-breaker’s bizarre death by trying to climb into a bag inside a bathtub and lock it himself 300 times. He failed every time, according to a report of the day’s inquest evidence in the Daily Telegraph.

Faulding said the task would have eluded even escapologist Harry Houdini.

UK intelligence officer: No cover-up in 'spy in the bag' case

He said he believed a third party was present, describing theories that Williams got inside the bag unaided as "unbelievable."

Video footage of Faulding attempting to re-create the death was shown to the inquest.

Police discovered the naked decomposing body of the 31-year-old spy padlocked inside a red sports bag in the bathtub of his flat in London in August 2010.

The strange circumstances surrounding Williams’ death have prompted a number of theories, and police eventually concluded he had been playing an auto-erotic sex game that went badly wrong.

Earlier this week, the inquest heard from Williams’ former landlady, who once found the spy in bed with his hands tied to the headboard wearing nothing except boxer shorts.

Faulding, a former Parachute Regiment reservist who specializes in rescuing people from confined spaces, was unable to lock himself inside an identical bag in the bath, according to a Press Association report.

"I couldn't say it's impossible, but I think even Houdini would have struggled with this one," he said, according to the PA. The expert added: "My conclusion is that Mr. Williams was either placed in the bag unconscious, or he was dead before he was in the bag."

He also raised the idea the bag was deliberately placed in the bath so “bodily fluids” could drain away.

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LONDON - There was "no evidence" to suggest that British intelligence services were part of a cover-up after one of their own was found naked and decomposing inside a locked duffel bag in his London apartment, an intelligence officer said on Thursday.

"Witness F" gave evidence to the inquest -- which are held when deaths are deemed violent or unnatural -- in the August 2010 death of MI6 officer Gareth Williams from behind a screen, BBC News reported.

MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence agency, is roughly equivalent to the Untied States' CIA.

The denial came on the same day that one of the code-breaker's relatives shrieked and brought proceedings to a halt while listening to details of a series of missteps that allowed for the spy to lay in his bathroom undiscovered for a week, the Telegraph reported.

UK cops close to arrest over British spy found dead in a bag?

The relatives walked out of the inquest in tears during Witness F's evidence, the BBC reported.

Their lawyer Anthony O'Toole said the agency showed a "total disregard for Gareth's whereabouts and safety."

Williams, 31, was a math prodigy working as a codebreaker at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the state eavesdropping service. 

Williams' family became increasingly upset during the four days of proceedings as it became clear that his absence did not spark any concern, despite the sensitive nature of his job, according to reports.

Witness F, a senior intelligence officer, told the inquest that MI6 was "profoundly sorry" for the delays, which had made it more difficult for the family to "come to terms with his dreadful death," the newspaper reported.

A detective told the inquest on Tuesday that a "third party was involved in that padlock being locked, and Gareth being placed in the bag."

Spy death inquiry looks at bondage link

The inquest has also been told that Williams, who was single and intensely private, would not have let a stranger into his flat, and that he would not have given his keys to anyone apart from close family.

There were no signs of a break-in or indications of foul play.

Small amounts of unidentified DNA were detected on the bag.

On Wednesday, the inquest heard that years earlier Williams had been found tied to his bed and unable to free himself.

Williams had shouted out for help in the middle of the night when he was living in an annex of the home of his then-landlady Jennifer Elliot in Cheltenham, western England.

Mystery couple sought in UK cyberspy's bizarre death

Elliot and her husband found Williams dressed only in boxer shorts with his hands tied to the headboard of the bed. He told her that he had been just "messing about," trying to see "if I could get myself free," the Telegraph newspaper reported.

In a written statement, Elliot said it was likely "to be sexual rather than escapology," the paper added.

Williams later took up a three-year assignment at the headquarters of Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6, whose offices are on the banks of the River Thames in central London.

Andrew Winning / Reuters

Ian and Ellen Williams and Cerri Subbe, the mother, father and sister of British MI6 agent Gareth Williams, leave Westminster Coroner's Court, in central London April 23, 2012.

Criminal charges over the death of a British spy – whose body was found in a sports bag – are a “real possibility,” a lawyer for police reportedly told a coroner Monday.

Gareth Williams, 31, a math prodigy who graduated from university at the age of 17, was found dead in his immaculate apartment in Pimlico, London, in August 2010.

At the opening of a hearing into the cause of his death, Vincent Williams, a lawyer for London’s Metropolitan Police, said he sought to block the coroner from making video footage related to the case public, The Guardian newspaper reported.

The lawyer said a "careful line must be struck between open justice" at the hearing and the investigation by police, according to The Guardian.

Asked why information should not be made public, the lawyer told the coroner “because there is a live, complex, ongoing investigation taking place.”

Spy death inquiry looks at bondage link

"It is because there may be criminal proceedings further down the line that the commissioner feels that the pattern of disclosure … has to be done with some care,” the lawyer added, saying charges were still a "real possibility."

Coroner Fiona Wilcox said there was a risk of harm to the U.K.’s national security and relations with other countries if some of those giving evidence at the hearing were named, The Guardian reported.

Mystery couple sought in UK cyberspy's bizarre death

Williams’ relatives have expressed fears that "some agency specializing in the dark arts" will prevent them from finding out the truth about his death, The Guardian said.

The dead man’s sister, Ceri Subbe, told the hearing she did not enjoy the culture of “flash car competitions,” “post-work drinking” and “rat race” at MI6, the U.K.’s secret intelligence service, The Telegraph newspaper reported.

Wilcox asked Subbe if she was surprised that more than £20,000 worth of female clothing was found in Williams’ apartment.

“I am not surprised, he was very generous with gifts,” Subbe said, adding that he may have collected the clothes because of his interest in fashion.

She said Williams was a cautious man and would not have let anyone inside his home if they had not been security vetted.

The hearing at Westminster Coroner’s Court in London is continuing.

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Abedin Taherkenareh / EPA

Iranians gather around a replica of an American spy drone on display next to Azadi (Freedom) square during a ceremony marking the 33rd anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Tehran on Feb. 11.

A top Iranian official claimed on Sunday that his government was copying the top-secret American spy drone captured by Iran's armed forced last year.

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who is chief of the aerospace division of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, was quoted by a semi-official news agency as saying that Iranian experts are recovering information from the RQ-170 Sentinel captured in December in eastern Iran, al Arabiya News reported.

"There is almost no part hidden to us in this aircraft. We recovered part of the data that had been erased. There were many codes and characters. But we deciphered them by the grace of God," Hajizadeh said. 

Drone that crashed in Iran risks secret U.S. technology

He said all operations carried out by the drone had been recorded in the memory of the aircraft, including maintenance and testing.

Expertsextracted data showing that the aircraft had spied on the compound where Osama bin Laden lived and was eventually killed, Hajizadeh reportedly said.

"In October 2010, the aircraft was sent to California for some technicalissues, where it was repaired and after flight tests, it was taken to Kandahar (in Afghanistan) in November 2010, when a series of technical problems still prevailed," he said, according to al Arabiya.

U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, a member of the Armed Services Committee, voiced doubts about the claim.

"There's a history here of Iranian bluster, particularly now when they're on the defensive because of our economic sanctions against them," Lieberman said in a television interview.  

Iran flaunted the capture of the Sentinel, a surveillance drone with stealth technology, as a victory for Iran and a defeat for the United States in a complicated intelligence and technological battle. 

While American officials acknowledged Iran's capture of the drone, they have said that Tehran would find it hard to exploit data and technology aboard.

Iran said the unmanned aircraft was shot down, but Washington disputes that and says the security systems mean Iran is unlikely to get valuable information from the Lockheed Martin Corp. drone.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. 

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Ex-Soviet KGB foreign intelligence chief Leonid Shebarshin was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Friday in an apparent suicide, Russian investigators said.

Shebarshin, 77, who headed the First Chief Directorate, a foreign intelligence service within the KGB in 1989-1991, appeared to have committed suicide, the Investigative Committee said on its website. A gun, which he was awarded upon retirement, was discovered near his body. Shebarshin had a bullet wound in his head, The Moscow Times reported.

Police also found a suicide note on the scene, Interfax news agency quoted a police official as saying.

The ex-spy, fluent in Urdu, worked on assignments in Pakistan, India and Iran in the 1950s-1970s. He was appointed deputy chief of foreign intelligence in 1987, and promoted to head the service in 1989.

Shebarshin briefly occupied the KGB's top post after the failed August 1991 hardline coup, intended to halt president Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, which paved the way for the collapse of the Communist Party, the end of the Soviet Union and the creation of the present-day Russian state.

He resigned from active service shortly after the coup. During his life, Shebarshin wrote books and articles on the history of foreign intelligence work.

According to The Independent, the lifenews.ru website quoted extracts from Shebarshin's diary found at the scene, which showed he might have had health problems. According to the report, the last entry read:

"March, 29 - 17.15, left eye failure. 19.00, went completely blind. Foreign Intelligence duty officer 4293593."

The KGB fragmented after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its once-mighty foreign intelligence service, crippled by under financing and corruption in the 1990s, suffered damage to its reputation in a number of embarrassing spy failures abroad.

The U.S. intelligence services exposed a group of 10 Russian spies operating on their territory in 2010, which was followed by a Cold War era-type spy swap between the two ex-foes.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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France 2 via AP

Mohamed Merah shown in this image from French TV station France 2

Mohamed Merah, the gunman who killed seven people including three Jewish children, may have been an informant for France's intelligence services, according to reports that raise further questions about whether authorities missed chances to prevent the attacks.

The 23-year-old, who is a French citizen of Algerian origin, shot dead three Muslim soldiers as well as three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school before being slain by police commandos at the end of a 32-hour standoff in an apartment in Toulouse.

It later emerged Merah had traveled to Afghanistan and Israel in 2010 and had been interviewed in November 2011 by the domestic intelligence agency Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur (DCRI).

Bernard Squarcini, head of the agency, was quoted by French newspaper Le Monde as saying Merah asked for a local DCRI agent by name while he was holed-up in the apartment surrounded by police.

Father of Toulouse gunman wants to sue France for killing son

Squarcini told Le Monde that Merah shocked the female agent by saying: "Anyway, I was going to call you to say I had some tip-offs for you, but actually I was going to [kill] you.”

Merah, who told police he had been inspired to commit his attacks by al-Qaida, used the French word "fumer", which means "to smoke," which is a slang term that also means to "murder" or "waste."

Squarcini’s remarks to Le Monde were reported in other French media, including Liberation and Le Figaro.

'Not trivial'
Yves Bonnet, former head of an intelligence agency that was merged with DCRI in 2008, told Toulouse newspaper La Dépêche du Midi that it was significant that Merah appeared to have a regular contact at the DCRI. “Having a contact is not totally innocent,” he told the newspaper. “This is not trivial.”

Italian newspaper Il Foglio said Merah’s trip to Israel and Afghanistan in September 2010 was made with the knowledge of the French foreign secret service, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure. However, London's Independent newspaper quoted a spokesman for the agency as dismissing that report as "grotesque".

Squarcini has since insisted Merah was not helping authorities, telling Liberation the gunman was not "an informer for the DCRI or any other French or foreign services."

Meanwhile, Merah’s body will be flown to Algeria on Thursday if the country agrees to receive it, an official at one of the biggest mosques in Paris told Reuters.

Abdallah Zekri said Merah's body was being kept at a hospital in Toulouse while Algerian authorities decided whether they were willing to receive it. French media had reported that Merah's father had requested burial in Algeria.

On Tuesday, Merah's father, Mohamed Benalen Merah, lashed out at French authorities for killing his son. The elder Merah, who lives in Algeria, had earlier said he wanted to sue France.

"France is a powerful country with huge resources," Merah told France 24 television. "They could have taken him while he slept. They could have used a sleep-inducing gas and taken him like a baby. Why were they so hasty? Why did they kill him?"

"They could have arrested him and had him face justice," he added.

However, the BBC said French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe responded: "If I were the father of such a monster, I would shut my mouth in shame.”

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Abdel Magid Al-fergany / AP, file

Abdullah al-Senoussi, right, whispers to Moammar Gadhafi in 2009.

Updated at 9:18 a.m. ET: NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania -- Mauritanian security officials arrested former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senoussi on Saturday, the country's official information agency and Libyan officials said. He is sought by the International Criminal Court.

The official communique said al-Senoussi was arrested at the airport in the capital of the West African nation. It said he was coming from Morocco and was carrying a fake Malian passport.

Libyan government spokesman Nasser al-Manee confirmed the news.

"He was arrested this morning in Nouakchott airport and there was a young man with him. We think it is his son," he said.

The ICC indicted al-Senoussi and Gadhafi's son for crimes against humanity, including multiple murders, allegedly committed during the former regime's crackdown on dissent.

Al-Manee said Libya was seeking al-Senussi's extradition.

"Today the prosecutor general has sent an extradition request to the Mauritanian government through Interpol, who delivered this request to the Mauritanian government," he told a news conference.

"The Libyan foreign ministry is in touch with Mauritania about the procedure. The Libyan government is ready to receive Abdullah al-Senussi ... and give him a fair trial in Libya."

This is a breaking news story. Please check again for more details.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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via EPA, file

Iran arrested Amir-Mirza Hekmati, a 28-year-old American of Iranian descent, in December and accused him of receiving CIA training at U.S. bases in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq.

TEHRAN -- Iran's supreme court on Monday dismissed an execution sentence passed by a revolutionary court against an Iranian-American national accused of spying for the CIA, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

"The supreme court nullified the execution sentence against Amir Mirza Hekmati and sent it to an affiliate court," said judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei without giving further details.

Hekmati, a 28-year-old of Iranian descent, was arrested in December and Iran's Intelligence Ministry accused him of receiving training at U.S. bases in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq.

The former military translator was born in Arizona, attended high school in Michigan and holds dual U.S.-Iranian citizenship.

His family said he was in Iran to visit his grandmothers when he was arrested.

Iran on radar as Obama talks to Israel supporters

Iran accuses Hekmati of receiving special training and serving at U.S. military bases before heading to Iran for an alleged intelligence mission. In December, Iran broadcast a video on state television in which Hekmati was shown delivering a purported confession in which he said he was part of a plot to infiltrate Iran's Intelligence Agency.

He was sentenced to death in January. The U.S. government has called Hekmati a victim of false charges.

Iran, which often accuses its foes of trying to destabilize its Islamic system, said in May it had arrested 30 people on suspicion of spying for the United States and later 15 people were indicted for spying for Washington and Israel. Hekmati's mother was allowed to see her son several times.

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The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

MOSCOW – A military court on Friday convicted a Russian officer of passing missile secrets to the CIA and sentenced him to 13 years in prison, officials said.

Lt. Col. Vladimir Nesterets was also stripped of his military rank after he pleaded guilty to passing classified information -- about tests involving Russia's latest strategic missiles, according to BBC News -- to the CIA for money, according to the Federal Security Service, the main agency that replaced the KGB.

The agency said Nesterets committed treason as he worked as a senior engineer at the Plesetsk launch pad in northwestern Russia near the Arctic Circle, a facility the military uses to launch satellites and test missiles.

The security service's terse statement did not say when Nesterets had been arrested or give any further details about his case.

Russia's missile program has seen a series of embarrassing setbacks in recent years, though not necessarily involving the Plesetsk base, the BBC said. Most prominently, the submarine-launched Bulava ballistic missile was hit by a series of test failures before being finally approved in December.

Growing U.S.-Russian tension
The spy conviction also comes amid growing tension in U.S.-Russian relations, despite President Barack Obama's efforts to "reset" them, following strains that had developed during the previous U.S. administration.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have worsened over a U.S.-led missile defense system being developed by NATO around Europe, and Russia teaming with China to block a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also has been increasingly eager to challenge the U.S. as he campaigns to reclaim his nation's presidency in next month's election.

He has accused Washington of fueling the massive protests that have recently taken place against his rule in order to weaken the nation.

The conviction also came just days after President Dmitry Medvedev told a Federal Security Service meeting that foreign governments were stepping up their spying activities in the country, according to a report by the AFP news agency.

Medvedev praised the Federal Security Service for exposing 199 foreign spies and agents last year, AFP reported. He added that some of those detained were Russians working for Western countries.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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