Investigative Committee refutes Emperor Alexander III’s poisoning theory

The Investigative Committee, which recently confirmed that the remains found in 1991 and 2007 in Yekaterinburg belong to Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna and their five children, has also done additional research.

While investigating Emperor Alexander III’s DNA to compare to the remains found in Yekaterinburg, they also ran a hair sample to refute a theory that the Emperor had been poisoned.

“A DNA test to prove a biological relationship between Emperor Alexander III, who had been exhumed in St. Petersburg’s Peter and Paul Cathedral, and the deceased man identified as former Emperor Nicholas II confirmed that they are relatives at the father-and-son level. The Yekaterinburg remains, which were found in 1991, were compared with Nicholas II’s DNA profile based on traces of his blood left on a shirt after he was attacked in Japan. Genetic profiles of the bone remains were also compared with samples from both paternal and maternal living relatives of the Romanov family. This is why there can be no doubt that the remains belong to the royal family,” Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin told Interfax.

“A DNA test to prove a biological relationship between Emperor Alexander III, who had been exhumed in St. Petersburg’s Peter and Paul Cathedral, and the deceased man identified as former Emperor Nicholas II confirmed that they are relatives at the father-and-son level. The Yekaterinburg remains, which were found in 1991, were compared with Nicholas II’s DNA profile based on traces of his blood left on a shirt after he was attacked in Japan. Genetic profiles of the bone remains were also compared with samples from both paternal and maternal living relatives of the Romanov family. This is why there can be no doubt that the remains belong to the royal family,” Bastrykin said.

“We decided to look into that conclusion by appointing a chemical examination of several of his hairs collected during the exhumation in this case. Modern technology allows the detection of poison or other toxic substances in a person’s body through an analysis of hair even a hundred years later. And the results of this examination completely refuted the theory that the emperor was poisoned.”