Will they dig

THE police investigation into the bid to assassinate Sergei Skripal and his daughter was yesterday widened to include other members of the family.

Forensic officers cordoned off the grave of the poisoned former Russian spy’s wife Lyudmila amid fears she too may have been the victim of toxin attack.

Some reports suggested police may dig up her remains as part of the probe. She died of cancer in 2012 aged 59.

Officers also took items away from the memorial headstone of Sergei’s son Alexander, who died in Russia aged 43 last July. Mystery surrounded his death with the family insisting he succumbed to liver disease but reports suggested he was killed in a car crash.

Sergei, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, who were both still fighting for life last night, visited the cemetery in Salisbury last week, on what would have been Alexander’s 44th birthday.

Sources believe the pair may have been poisoned in his home with a “Trojan horse” package unwittingly brought to Britain from Moscow by Yulia that released the nerve agent at a set time.

A former British intelligence officer said: “The Trojan horse theory is gaining in credibility because it seems more likely.

“If so, the device that delivered the nerve agent at the right time was extremely sophisticated.

“The sender had to make sure the agent was stabilised throughout its journey and would be delivered at the right time.

“How they did this, is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it was a gift from the old country, vodka, a jar of honey, cigar, who knows? But it is possible there was an anniversary and the sender requested the gift to be opened at a certain time.”

As the search for clues continued, the military was drafted in to the Wiltshire town to help remove vehicles and objects that the police would like to examine.

Detectives hope they can lead them to the shadowy figures behind the nerve gas murder bid – widely believed to be ordered by Moscow in revenge for Sergei handing secrets to MI6 when he was a spy.

More than 180 troops arrived in Salisbury yesterday, including Royal Marines, RAF and chemical specialists. Experts from the Defence Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear Centre