Court says Russia’s last Tsar was slain unlawfully

MOSCOW: Russia’s Supreme Court ordered on Wednesday that Tsar Nicholas II be recognised as a victim of Soviet repression, a symbolic victory for monarchists who said it would help draw a line under Russia’s blood-stained past.

The last Tsar, his wife and five children were killed by a Bolshevik revolutionary firing squad in 1918, but unlike many of the tens of millions of others who suffered Soviet persecution, they have never been officially recognised as
victims.

Last year the Supreme Court ruled that a legal technicality prevented the royal family from being granted the status of victims of repression: they had never been accused of any crime, so it was impossible to rescind the accusation.

But on Wednesday the Supreme Court, hearing an appeal lodged by a lawyer acting for descendants of Russia’s Romanov imperial line, overturned its previous ruling, said Pavel Odintsov, a spokesman for the court.

“The presidium of the Supreme Court determined that ... (Tsar Nicholas and his family) be recognised as groundlessly repressed and that they are to be rehabilitated,” said Odintsov. “This decision is final.”

“It was very important for our society that the crime committed 90 years ago was condemned, and that unfair accusations against the Tsar and members of his family, that they were enemies of the people ... should be removed.”

“We have achieved victory,” said Zakatov. “The law has been carried out and now we can draw a line under this with great satisfaction and happiness.” He said Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna would soon be sent an official document intimated.