Russia reopens investigation into murder of last Tsar

Moscow, Aug 25 (UNI) Russian Prosecutor-General's Office has reopened an investigation into the execution of the Romanov family following the discovery of the remains of Russia's last Tsar Nicholas II's son Prince Alexei and daughter Maria, in Urals region, last month.

The remains of a boy and a young woman were exhumed near the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, where Russia's last Tsar, his wife Alexandra, their four daughters and son, and several servants were shot dead by Bolsheviks in 1918.

''The Prosecutor General's Office decided to reopen the investigation into the criminal case opened over the fact of the finding of the royal family remains in 1991,'' a prosecutor told Itar-Tass news agency.

Archaeologists said the site had been spotted after declassifying archival documents recently. Scientists discovered the place after studying written evidence by Yakov Yurovsky, who led the firing squad.

The Urals region's forensic bureau chief Nikolai Nevolin said at a news conference yesterday the remains, believed to be those of Alexei and his sister Maria, including 44 bone fragments, teeth fragments, as well as strips of fabric and bullets, were submitted for examination August 17, and prosecutors reopened the case on August 21.

Mr Nevolin said DNA tests will be carried on the bones to identify the gender and the relationship of the bodies discovered at the site.

He also said the genetic analysis would reveal whether the boy suffered from haemophilia, a rare hereditary blood disorder that afflicted Prince Alexei.

The bullets found at the burial site would also be tested, Nevolin said.

Nicholas II abdicated in 1917 and he and his family were subsequently detained. The following year, they were sent to Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains, where a Bolshevik firing squad executed them on July 17, 1918.

In 1998, experts exhumed and ceremonially reburied what were widely considered to be the remains of Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and the three daughters, at St Peter and Paul's Cathedral in St Petersburg.

UNI