‘Spy’ Threatened to Reveal Deals, Newspaper Says

A purported British spy likely was murdered because he threatened to reveal details of the British government’s secret deals to secure the release of Beirut hostages, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Ian Stuart Spiro also had vital information about the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270, the Sunday Telegraph said.

Police suspect Spiro, 46, of killing his wife, Gail, 40, and children, Sara, 16, Adam, 14, and Dina, 11, found fatally shot in the family’s rented home in Rancho Santa Fe on Nov. 5.

Spiro, 46, was found dead, slumped over the steering wheel of his car in a remote desert park, three days later. Police said he died of cyanide poisoning.

News reports said Spiro was a former U.S. and British spy who worked in the 1980s to free hostages in Lebanon, helping then Church of England envoy Terry Waite, among others.

The newspaper quoted his cousin, Nigel Spiro, as saying he had planned to reveal the British government’s secret deals to secure the release of Britons John McCarthy and Jackie Mann--and of Waite, who later became a hostage.

The newspaper said Nigel Spiro, now in hiding, “is convinced his cousin was murdered, together with his family, because he was threatening to tell the story of his involvement” in the hostage crisis.