Russia's Supreme Court has ruled that the last Tsar,
Nicholas II, and his family were victims of political repression and should be
rehabilitated.
The rehabilitation has long been demanded by the tsar's
descendants.
Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, their five children, doctor
and three servants were shot dead by Bolshevik revolutionaries in July, 1918.
Lower courts had previously refused to reclassify the
killings, which had been categorised as simply murder.
The Romanov family have been canonised as saints by the
Orthodox Church, which has enjoyed a post-Soviet revival.
For most of the last century, Tsar Nicholas II was
officially reviled as a tyrant. To Russia's Soviet regime, he personified all
they had tried to destroy in the revolution of 1917.
The Romanovs were shot by a firing squad without a trial, in
the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
The Supreme Court "declared as groundless the repression
of Tsar Nicholas II and his family and ordered their rehabilitation", the
judge's decision said on Wednesday.
The ruling overturned a decision by a Supreme Court panel in
November 2007 not to rehabilitate the imperial family.
The descendants' lawyer, German Lukyanov, argued that the
lack of a trial was not sufficient grounds to reject the plea that they be
considered victims of political repression.
Coercion by state bodies, restricting the freedom and rights
of citizens for class, religious or social reasons, constituted repression, he
told the court.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, official
attitudes to the royal family have changed dramatically. In 1998, their remains
were reburied with great ceremony in St Petersburg.
The BBC's James Rodgers in Moscow says the supreme court's
decision is largely symbolic - but has been welcomed by monarchists and the
tsar's descendants.
Russia