Czech Republic Defense Minister Karla Slechtova has backed President Milos Zeman’s orders for the counterintelligence service BIS to investigate whether the country ever produced or stored the deadly nerve agent Novichok, Radio Praha reported on Tuesday. The previous day, Zeman instructed the head of BIS, Michal Koudelka, to conduct the investigation. The order came on the same day that Prime Minister Andrej Babis announced that three Russian diplomats would be expelled from the country in connection with the recent poison attack on a former spy and his daughter in the UK. The government earlier rejected the Russian Foreign Ministry’s suggestion that the nerve agent could have come from the Czech Republic. Slechtova also expressed hope that the probe would confirm the government’s earlier information on the matter.