11 October 2011

2011-10-11 Inerfax re Handing over of Report

Interfax: The Investigative Committee will shortly hand over to the House of Romanoff materials from its investigation into the executions of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers, Emperor Nicholas II and his family.

Moscow. October 11. The Investigative Committee of Russia has decided to hand over to the descendants of the Romanoffs in the next several days a copy of their final report from their criminal investigation into the murders of the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, and members of his family.

“This will probably take place in the next few days,” the lead criminal investigator for the Main Criminal Division of the Investigative Committee, Wladimir Solov’ev, told Interfax on Tuesday.

V. Solov’ev led the investigation into the murder of the Imperial Family.

According to Solov’ev, the documents will mostly likely be mailed to the descendants of the Romanoffs. These materials can be given over to representatives of the House of Romanoff by hand with a signed receipt, Solov’ev stated.

“I see no problem handing over these materials. Everything will be done properly, and by the deadline established by the court. There is a court order, and so we will hand over the materials. At present, I am preparing materials for the transfer of the materials. We need to print, bind, and format everything properly,” the lead investigator said.

German Luk’ianov, the attorney for the House of Romanoff, told Interfax on Tuesday that the descendants of the Romanoffs expect to receive the Committee’s report by mail.

“This will allow us to save time and will be the most secure way to handle the materials,” he said.

Luk’ianov was unable to say how long it would take for the House of Romanoff to review the report.

“Everything will depend on the contents of the report, on the volume of information it contains. If we see that the investigation was perfunctory and superficial, then our response will be quite quick in coming. If we see that the investigation was thorough and exhaustive, then it will require more time for our legal analysis of the materials,” Luk’ianov said.

“Receiving this report may help resolve the question of the identity of the remains found near Ekaterinburg,” Luk’ianov told Interfax back in September.

In September, V. Solov’ev said that the investigative materials and the final report contained no classified information in them. “The investigation was conducted in an entirely transparent way. I never classified as secret anything we worked on. All of our conclusions were arrived at and discussed openly and freely. There are no new revelations in the report,” Solov’ev said.

“Ascertaining the identity of these remains has been my main goal in this investigation. I hope that the Romanoffs will accept these materials objectively,” Solov’ev said.

Solov’ev emphasized that he has no doubts about the authenticity of the Ekaterinburg remains. “By today’s standards, there could be no higher degree of proof, especially after the analysis of Nicholas II’s shirt. The methods which were employed to establish this identification are so advanced that they will become available on a widespread scale only in maybe a decade. The likes of these specialists are so rare that one would be hard pressed to find such specific expertise anywhere in Russia, or even anywhere in the entire world,” Solov’ev emphasized.

A court had previously ruled that the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation had to hand over to the descendants of the Romanoffs a copy of the final report on the criminal investigation into the murders of Tsar Nicholas II. The Director of the Chancellery of the House of Romanoff, Alexander Zakatov, told Interfax on July 27 that a copy of the report of criminal investigation into the executions of Nicholas II would permit the House of Romanoff to have the official results of the investigations, to draw their own conclusions about the matter, and help determine what future actions the Imperial Family might take.

The Head of the House of Romanoff, Grand Duchess Maria Wladimirovna, currently lives in Spain.

The House of Romanoff believes that it is too early to draw any final conclusions about the murder of Nicholas II. An open question still is, among other things, the authenticity of the royal remains.

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation announced in January that it had concluded its criminal investigation into the deaths of the members of the Russian Imperial House and others with them in 1918 and 1919, and had closed the case. Members of the last emperor’s family and their servants—11 people in all—were shot on orders from the Presidium of the Ural Soviet on the night of July 17, 1918.

On October 1, 2008, the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation rehabilitated Nicholas II and members of his family. In July 1991, on the Staraia Koptiakovskaia road near Ekaterinburg, a gravesite was unearthed containing the remains of nine people.

It was proposed at the time that the remains belonged to the Imperial Family: Nicholas II, his 46-year-old wife, Alexandra Fedorovna, their daughters (the 22-year-old Olga, 21-year-old Tat’iana, and the 17-year-old Anastasia), and also their servants (53-year-old Evgeny Botkin, 40-year-old Anna Demidova, 62-year-old Alois Trupp, and 48-year-old Ivan Kharitonov). The members of the Imperial Family were buried in the Imperial Mausoleum in the Ss. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

On July 29, 2007, at an archeological dig approximately 70 kilometers south from the first gravesite, the remains of two more persons were found. Many experts believe that these remains belong to Tsesarevich Aleksei and his sister, Maria. The remains have not yet been buried.

The announcement from the Investigative Committee in January stated that the remains found near Ekaterinburg belong to the Imperial Family and their servants, who had been executed by the Bolsheviks.

Please publish modules in offcanvas position.