Pure speculation from the Sun

On Monday afternoon, the body of MI6 worker Gareth Williams was discovered in his flat.

As the BBC report:

Gareth Williams, 30, was found dead in the top-floor flat in Alderney Street, Pimlico, on Monday afternoon.

Officers broke in after work colleagues said Mr Williams, from Anglesey, had not been seen for at 10 days.

Police said post mortem tests have been inconclusive. His blood will now be tested for traces of drugs and alcohol.

The Metropolitan Police have classified the death as “suspicious and unexplained”.

And:

BBC News correspondent Jon Brain said Mr Williams worked at the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) about half a mile from the flat in Vauxhall Cross.

He said it was not known what job he was doing there and that his death was not necessarily connected to it.

Got that? Well, this is how the Sun are reporting the same story:

Obviously the Sun is privy to new information as the possibility of a connection to Al-Qaeda was never mentioned in the BBC’s version of the story.

This connection is, however, somewhat undermined when you click on the story and see the following headline:

Now, forgive me if I’m wrong but that’s a question, isn’t it? Not a statement of fact or even a quote.

The Sun’s article begins with:

DETECTIVES were last night investigating whether a spook whose body was found in a suitcase was assassinated by AL-QAEDA.

Notice the clever use of language there – “whether”.

But perhaps I’m being overly cynical. Let’s hear The Sun’s justification for mentioning a possible Al-Qaeda connection:

…[H]e was attached to MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service which gathers information about Britain’s enemies abroad – triggering fears he could have been a terrorist target.

It was reported last night that Mr Williams’s mobile phone and a number of SIM cards were laid out in a ritualistic manner at the murder scene in swanky Alderney Street, Pimlico, Central London – near to MI6 headquarters.

Another murder theory was that the young officer – described as a “mild-mannered” cycling fan – was killed over a sex triangle or some other aspect of his private life.

So, it’s just as likely that Mr Williams was killed as a result of a love triangle as it is that he was assassinated by Al-Qaeda.

As further “proof” of the existence of an Al-Qaeda hit, The Sun includes a quote from a “security expert”:

To kill any Government security worker would be an extraordinary coup for a terrorist organisation like al-Qaeda.

It would not matter how junior the worker was — it would send shockwaves through Government and show that no one in Britain was 100 per cent safe.

Convinced yet? No, nor am I. No reference is made as to who this “security expert” is. And what’s to say The Sun didn’t put these words in his mouth?

The Sun say themselves that:

Sources stressed it was too early to say what the motive was behind the killing. One said: “All options are being looked at.”

“All options are being looked at” is not the same as “Al-Qaeda did it”.

The connection to Al-Qaeda is pure speculation on The Sun’s part. It’s quite obvious that this has been done purely to make the story seem more sensational and to draw more people into reading it.

This is cynical, tasteless and very poor journalism indeed.

Just what we’ve come to expect from The Sun…