MOSCOW, March 30 (RIA Novosti) - The Imperial House
of the Romanovs is to submit a request for the exoneration of
the tsar's family members, who were killed along with the
Russian royal family, the Romanov chancellery director told
reporters on Monday.
Alexander Zakatov said on Friday, Grand Duchess Maria
Romanov, a distant Romanov family member who resides in France,
had sent a request to the Prosecutor General's Office in Russia
to look into the possibility of exonerating members of the
tsarist family who had been repressed for having ties with the
royal family.
"Most of the Romanov family members have been exonerated,"
Zakatov said. "We are now waiting for a decision on [accepting
additional] requests from the Prosecutor General's Office, and
after that we will resubmit documentation on other people who
shared the same agonizing end as the members of the tsarist
family."
Tsar Nickolas II, his wife, their four daughters and son,
and several servants, were shot dead by the Bolsheviks in a
basement in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg in the early hours
of July 17, 1918. The Romanovs were canonized in 2000, and are
buried in St. Petersburg's Peter and Paul Cathedral.
Currently the Prosecutor General's Office is considering
an exoneration request for Prince Mikhail, who was exiled to
the Urals and shot in June 1918, as well as Princess Yelena and
Prince Sergei. The request also concerns blood relatives of
Nicholas II - princes Ioann, Konstantin and Igor - who were
arrested and thrown alive into an abandoned well in Sverdlovsk.
The Russian Imperial House in exile has sought since 2005
to have the Romanov family exonerated as victims of political
repression. Grand Duchess Maria Romanov, who heads the House,
insists the killings were a state-sponsored execution rather
than murder. She has previously tried to have her son, Tsar
Nicholas I's great-great-grandson, Dmitry Romanov, reinstated
as the Russian tsar.
Russia's judiciary has rejected the demands saying the
Romanovs never faced any formal charges before being executed
by the Bolsheviks.
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