Remains may be Romanov children

MOSCOW (AP) -- There is a "high degree of probability" that bones found recently near the Russian city of Yekaterinburg are those of a daughter and son of the last czar, an official said Friday, citing preliminary forensic work.

If confirmed, the latest find would fill in a missing chapter in the story of the doomed Romanovs, who were killed after the violent 1917 Bolshevik Revolution ushered in more than 70 years of Communist Party rule.

The bones were found by archaeologists in a burned field near Yekaterinburg, a city in the Ural Mountains where Czar Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra, and their five children were held prisoner by the Bolsheviks and then shot in 1918. The discovery was announced in August.

"Investigators have made a preliminary conclusion that there is a high degree of probability that the bones ... belong to the Crown Prince Alexei and Princess Maria," said Vladimir Gromov, deputy forensic chief in the Sverdlovsk region, in televised remarks.

NTV television said in August that along with the remains archaeologists found shards of a ceramic container of sulfuric acid as well as nails, metal strips from a wooden box, and bullets of various caliber.

Prosecutors have announced they would reopen an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the royal family.

In 1998, remains unearthed from a mining pit in Yekaterinburg and identified as those of Nicholas and Alexandra and three of their daughters were reburied in a ceremony in the imperial-era capital of St. Petersburg. The ceremony, however, was shadowed by statements of doubt -- including from within the Russian Orthodox Church -- about their authenticity. E-mail to a friend

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