Heir demands reopening of investigation into murder of Russian Tsar Nicholas II

The putative heir to Russia’s imperial throne has urged the Russian Government to re-launch the investigation into the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1918.

“This case is essential for Russia. Russians need to know about the fate of the tsarist family and all of the other victims of the Communist regime. There should be a clear legal verdict on this,” The Telegraph quoted Alexander Zakatov, the representative of Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, as saying.

Nicholas II, his wife and five children were killed by a revolutionary firing squad in July 1918 in the cellar of a merchant’s house in Yekaterinburg, 900 miles east of Moscow.

The Russian Prosecutor-General has formally closed a criminal investigation into the shooting because too much time had elapsed since the crime and because those responsible had died, the paper said.

Zakatov said that Vladimirovna’s lawyers have asked Moscow’s Basmanny court to force prosecutors to reopen the case, as a host of questions about the murder are yet to be answered, the paper added.

According to the paper, remains believed to belong to the tsar and his family were exhumed in 1991 and reburied in 1998 in the imperial crypt of the St Peter and Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg.

But the Russian Orthodox Church says it is still unclear whether the remains are in fact those of the last tsar and his family, a view supported by many members of the Romanov family.

“The Russian Orthodox Church and the Imperial House have so far not found enough evidence to recognise those remains as those of the Tsarist family,” Zakatov said.

The Romanov dynasty ruled Russia for 300 years before Nicholas II abdicated in 1917, setting Russia on course for the Bolshevik Revolution, civil war and 70 years of Communist rule.