A Russian court has ordered prosecutors to reopen an investigation into the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family.

(Kazan August 27, Tatar-Inform). A Russian court has ordered prosecutors to reopen an investigation into the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, despite the fact that the Bolsheviks who are believed to have shot them in 1918 are long dead.

The Russian prosecutor general's main investigative unit this year said it had formally closed a criminal investigation into the killing of Nicholas II because too much time had elapsed since the crime and because those responsible had died.

But Moscow's Basmanny Court ordered the case reopened on Thursday, saying a Supreme Court ruling blaming the state for the killings made the deaths of the actual gunmen irrelevant, Reuters reports citing a lawyer for the tsar's descendants said and Russian agencies.

Nicholas II, his wife and five children were killed by a revolutionary firing squad on the night of July 16-17, 1918 in the cellar of a merchant's house in Yekaterinburg, a city 1,450 kilometres east of Moscow. In 2008 they were recognized by Russia's Supreme Court as victims of Bolshevik repression.

The Russian Orthodox Church says it is still unclear whether the remains are in fact those of the last tsar and his family, a view supported by many members of the Romanov family.

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