Lawyer German Lukyanov, representing the Russian Imperial House in exile, said the Prosecutor General's Office on Tuesday had refused to take the Nicholas II case to a higher court, without giving any specific legal reasons. The refusal came a month after prosecutors had turned down a Romanov request to recognize Russia's last monarch as a victim of Bolshevik repression and clear him of all political charges.
"The Russian Imperial House will use all the possibilities provided by Russia's constitution to protect the law, justice, its own honor and the bona fide of the Romanov dynasty," Lukyanov said. "We intend to go to court shortly, as a gross violation of law is taking place. The Prosecutor General's Office is unwilling to take into account the existence of legal documents submitted to it from archives of the FSB [Federal Security Service]."
He said the documents made it quite clear that Nicholas II and his immediate family, including his wife and their two children, had been executed by firing squad.
"These documents have been furnished by state bodies, and the fact that they are being neglected indicates a crisis in the rule of law in the country," said Lukyanov.
The Russian Imperial House has claimed that Nicholas II and his immediate family were killed following the Bolshevik revolution on government orders, and that their killing should consequently be classified as state-sponsored execution of political enemies.
Prosecutors, however, have said it was a criminal act of murder and "there is no credible evidence proving the existence of any official decisions by judicial or non-judicial bodies to exert politically-motivated repression" against the tsar or his family members.
The remains of Nicholas II, killed 1918 outside the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, were buried in 1998 with honors in the former imperial capital, St. Petersburg. The Russian Orthodox Church canonized him two years later.
