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Queen Maria Karadjordjevic of Yugoslavia.

The Belgrade-based higher court ruled on Monday that the Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia had deprived Queen Maria of her human rights for political and ideological reasons in 1947, taking away her citizenship and property rights.

The request to rehabilitate her was filed in October last year by the descendants of her sons Tomislav and Andrew Karadjordjevic.

“This is a very happy day for us. Queen Maria devoted her life to the people and she will now take the place in history that she deserves,” one of them, Linda Karadjordjevic, told reporters.

Monday’s decision will allow the heirs of the former royal family to reclaim the seized property under Serbia’s restitution law.

Maria, a Romanian princess and a great-granddaughter of the British Queen Victoria, was born in Germany in 1900.

She married Alexander Karadjordjevic, then king of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and later of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in 1922 in Belgrade.

After the assassination of her husband in the French city of Marseille in 1934, she moved to England, leaving behind Peter II to rule the country.

Following Nazi Germany’s attack on Serbia and the subsequent capitulation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, King Peter II and the government fled the country.

After World War II and the establishment of communist rule, the entire royal family was banned from returning to the country, and their citizenships were rescinded and all property seized in 1947.

Maria Karadjordjevic died in poverty in 1961 in London, and was buried at the Royal Burial Ground in Windsor, near the grave of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.

Her remains were moved to Serbia last May and she was buried in the Karadjordjevic family mausoleum at Oplenac next to her son and daughter-in-law, King Peter II and Queen Alexandra.