The Russian Supreme Court on Wednesday declared the last czar
and his murdered family to be victims of political repression — a decision that
helps Russia move toward closing a chapter in its tortured history.
The decision by an appeals panel ends years of efforts by
Czar Nicholas II's descendants to get authorities to reclassify the killings
from premeditated murder.
Prosecutors and lower courts had repeatedly rejected
appeals, saying the Romanov family had not been executed for political reasons.
On Wednesday, Pavel Odintsov, a spokesman for the court,
said the panel accepted the appeals of Romanov descendants to
"rehabilitate" them.
Nicholas II abdicated in 1917 as revolutionary fervor swept
Russia, and he and his family were detained.
The czar, his wife Alexandra and their son and four
daughters were fatally shot on July 17, 1918, in a basement room of a
merchant's house where they were held in the Ural Mountains city of
Yekaterinburg.
German Lukyanov, a lawyer for the Romanov family, said the
decision was based on law and said no politics were involved.
"In the end this will help the country, this will help
Russia understand its history, help the world to see that Russia observed its
own laws, help Russia in its development to become a civilized country,"
he told The Associated Press.
The remains of Nicholas II and Alexandra and three siblings
were unearthed in 1991 and reburied in the imperial resting place in St.
Petersburg.
Meanwhile, Nicholas' heir, Alexei, and his daughter, Grand
Duchess Maria, remained missing for decades until bone shards were unearthed in
2007 in a forest outside Yekaterinburg, not from the place where the rest of
the family's mutilated remains had been scattered.
Officials said earlier this year that DNA testing had
confirmed the shards belonged to Alexei and Maria.
The Russian Orthodox Church made all seven of them saints in
2000.
"Rehabilitation" in Russia has legal, political
and cultural significance. It recognizes that a person was a victim of
political repression by the country's Communist-era authorities.
Many of those who were shot or sent to prison
camps under Soviet rule have been rehabilitated, which also exonerates them of
the crimes they were accused of at the time.
