(Continued from page 3)

I. The Scientists   


Two of the late Mr. Tammet-Romanov's teeth were received at the Forensic Science Service laboratory in Aldermaston in England seven months after Russian researcher Dr. Pavel Ivanov first arrived there with bone fragments from the Imperial grave that had been unearthed the day after Boris Yeltsin's 1991 inauguration as Russia's president.  On the tenth day of May 1993 Dr. Ivanov sent a memo to Molecular Research Centre director Dr. Peter Gill stating that he considered the analysis of those teeth to be worthwhile.

Dr. Ivanov admitted in an August 1995 letter to Mrs. Romanov that a DNA extraction was started on one of the teeth.  He says there was a "hiatus" and the work was stopped but gives no explanation why.  It was then suggested that they should charge for the tests.  Dr. Ivanov said that to the best of his knowledge the extraction was still in a laboratory freezer in Aldermaston when he left for Moscow on the 16th of July 1993.  He admits that the other tooth is still in his possession.

At a news conference on the 10th of July 1993 Dr. Gill announced that their DNA testing had revealed with a 98.5 percent certainty that the Russian bones were those of Tsar Nicholas II and four of his family.  Dr. Ivanov headed home six days later, the day before the seventy-fifth anniversary of the murders.  In the preface of his book "The Romanov Conspiracies", Dr. Michael Occleshaw suggested that before he left England Dr. Ivanov had complained about political interference.  Seven months after Dr. Ivanov's departure, in a letter to Mrs. Romanov, Dr. Gill claimed to have no knowledge of the Tammet-Romanov samples.

DR. PAVEL IVANOV RUSSIAN ACADEMY
OF SCIENCES

DR. PETER GILL FORENSIC SCIENCE SERVICE OF ENGLAND

A research paper on the mitochondrial DNA work was sent by Dr. Gill to the scientific journal "Nature Genetics" in August of 1993 and it was published in the February 1994 edition.  That paper has since been held up as the document to which any comparisons with the DNA of those who claimed to be survivors of the Romanov murders should be made.  However, in the case of Alexei Heino Tammet-Romanov, Dr. Gill's laboratory was in possession of his samples BEFORE it published the report on the identification of the Tsar.

One does not begin a scientific procedure and then stop in the middle of the test because any time delay can become a factor influencing the results.  This is especially critical with mitochondrial DNA work, which can be contaminated so easily that the researchers' own DNA should be identified before the work is started.  Just breathing near a sample can spoil the result.

© J. Kendrick 1997                                                                                                                                                (continued on page 5)