Russia reopens criminal case into death of Tsar Nicholas II and the Imperial Family

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...Alexandra.html

Russia reopens criminal case into 1918 revolution and exhumes the remains of the Russian Imperial Family

Victims: After being shot dead by the Bolsheviks, the remains of the 50 year old Tsar (centre) his Empress Alexandra, 46, and three of their children Grand Duchess Olga, 22, (far left) Grand Duchess Tatyana, 21, (far right) and Grand Duchess Anastasia, 17, (third from right) were thrown into a mineshaft near Yekaterinburg. Bone fragments of 13 year old heir Tsarevich Alexei (second from right) and his 19 year old sister Grand Duchess Maria (second from left) were found later in a separate grave

The Romanov family were killed in 1918 after the Bolshevik Revolution but the mystery relating to their deaths and the aftermath has never gone away. Russian investigators have exhumed the remains of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra in a bid to finally solve an enduring mystery surrounding their murder nearly a century ago.

Forensic experts from Russia’s powerful investigative committee on Wednesday took DNA samples from Tsar Nicholas, his wife, and his grandfather, as part of an investigation to establish the fate of the last unburied members of the murdered royal family: the Tsarevich Alexei Romanov, and his sister Maria. The investigative committee believes that human remains found in 2007 belong to Alexei and Maria, but is conducting the new study after the Russian Orthodox Church raised doubts over the fate of the pair.

“The current investigation is not an attempt to revise earlier received evidence and established facts, but solely necessary for additional investigation requested by the Russian Orthodox Church,” the committee said in a statement.

Nicholas II, Russia’s last Romanov Tsar, was deposed during the revolution of 1917 and sent into exile to Ekaterinburg, a city in the Ural mountains, along with members of his family and household servants. The revolution overthrew the centuries-old Russian Empire and led to decades of communist rule under the Soviet Union until 1991.

Blood spattered cellar where the Romanov family were murdered by the Soviets

On 17 July, 1918, they were led to cellar, lined up as if for a family photograph, and murdered by a Bolshevik firing squad. Witnesses said those who did not die immediately were finished off with bayonets. The remains were doused with acid and buried in an unmarked pit, where they lay undiscovered until located by amateur researchers in 1979. In 1991, the bodies of Nicholas, Alexandra, and three of their daughters were exhumed and buried in St Petersburg. An initial investigation opened in 1993, was closed five years later after DNA samples confirmed that the remains found near Ekaterinburg were those of Tsar Nicholas. But two bodies were missing: those of Alexei, Nicholas and Alexandra’s son and heir, and his sister Maria.

In 2007, two more sets of remains - believed to be those of Alexei and Maria – were discovered at a second site nearby. Multiple DNA tests by Russian and foreign experts, some of which were conducted in laboratories in Britain, have established that the remains are genuine.

Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin making a speech during the revolution in Moscow. It is thought he personally ordered the execution of the Imperial Family.

But the Orthodox Church questioned the findings and has previously refused to allow the remains to be interred alongside the rest of the royal family. As a result the remains have languished in a box in the Russian state archives ever since. The case has major religious implications because Nicholas II and his family have been canonised by the Russian Orthdox Church. But because a very early investigation concluded that the bodies had been entirely destroyed, some conservative believers doubt that the relics are genuine.

There is a conservative grass-roots movement within the church that doubts that any of the remains found in Ekaterinburg - including those already buried in St Petersburg - are genuine. The Church's formal position is that the remains have not yet been verified, but that they may be at some unspecified future date. The current investigation is meant to satisfy the church so a burial can finally go ahead later this year. “The exhumation was done in the presence of representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church. The necessary samples were taken from the remains of Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna,” Vladimir Solovyov, the head of the investigation team, told TASS, a state-owned Russian news agency.

Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia with the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy

The Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, a surviving descendant to the murdered family and current head of the House of Romanov dynasty, said via a lawyer that she supported the move. “The grand duchess hopes that the examination of the Yekaterinburg remains will be scientific... The truth must be established in this case, with an answer to the main question: whose are these remains?” her lawyer, German Lukyanov, told the Tass.

I suspect there's a lot of politics behind this decision.

In 2017 it'll be the centenary of the overthrow of Imperial Russia by the Soviets and there have been various stories dripping into the media over the past few years that suggest Putin could restore the Russian royals to the throne or to a prominent position in Russian society. In many ways it is the next step along the way, the Russian Orthodox Church is increasingly taking its role back at the centre of Russian society and the return of the Romanovs would be another restoration that Putin seems quite keen on: from the state embelm to the church, to the palaces and buildings.

I certainly hope so.

Thoughts?