The remains of the Iraq weapons inspector David Kelly were secretly exhumed by his family in July, police said.
Sources close to the family said they acted after the grave was desecrated by conspiracy theorists who believe that the scientist’s death was “not by his own hand”.
Dr Kelly was found dead near Longworth, Oxfordshire, in 2003. He swallowed painkilling tablets and slashed his wrists after being exposed as the source of a BBC report stating that the official dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which was presented as a central case for the war, had been “sexed up”.
His death led to the Hutton inquiry, which concluded that he had committed suicide. The inquiry took priority over an inquest, though calls for one