THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 8, 1994 TAG: 9409080458
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
Princess Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas II, was among those slain when Bolsheviks executed the royal family in 1918, a Russian government panel has concluded.
There have been persistent claims for more than 75 years that Anastasia survived the assassination and escaped abroad.
British experts determined last year that bones found in a pit outside Yekaterinburg in 1991 were those of the czar, his wife and three of his five children.
The royal couple had four daughters and a son. British experts said the remains they examined belonged to three of the daughters, but they did not know which three.
``Our tests could not prove who they were, just that they were three of the girls,'' Alison Streeton, a spokeswoman for the British government's Forensic Science Service in London, said Wednesday.
British scientists are working on their own study based on DNA extracted from the bones, and say conclusive results will not be available for at least several weeks.
The Russian panel, in a report released Tuesday, said the combined findings of the British and Russian scientists showed there was now ``definite proof'' that one of the skeletons belonged to Anastasia.
Streeton said she could not comment on the Russians' conclusions.
Authorities still have not found the remains of Anastasia's brother, Alexei, or sister, Maria, according to the Russian panel's report, covered in the newspaper Segodnya.
The British are conducting further research for an American lawyer, distantly related to Anna Anderson of Charlottesville, who claimed to be the youngest daughter of the last Russian czar. Anderson died in 1984. by CNB