MOSCOW, July 16: DNA tests confirm that bones found last year belonged to the last tsar’s murdered children, Alexei and Maria, prosecutors said on Wednesday, as Russia marked the 90th anniversary of their death.

“Full results of DNA studies, using three genetic testing systems, confirm the hypothesis that the second grave contained the remains of Grand Duchess Maria and Tsarevich Alexei,” the prosecutor’s office investigative committee said in a statement.The announcement was made hours before ceremonies to mark the 90th anniversary of the murder of Russia’s last tsar Nicholas II and his family by Bolshevik agents in the early hours of July 17, 1918.

Russian Orthodox believers were expected to gather in their thousands for elaborate ceremonies remembering the execution of the family, who have since been canonised as saints by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Remains identified as those of Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and three of their daughters were buried in a highly symbolic, but controversial funeral in 1998 in the former imperial capital of Saint Petersburg.

While scientists said they were virtually sure of the authenticity of the remains, the powerful Orthodox Church did not let its bishops attend the burial.

When Russian pathologists first investigated the latest bone fragments last year they quickly expressed confidence that these were the two missing members of the slain Romanov family.

—AFP