Английская Википедия:Irakli Beraia
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Use dmy dates Шаблон:Infobox officeholder
Irakli Beraia (born on 26 October 1978 ; in Georgian: ირაკლი ბერაია) is a Georgian politician and intelligence officer, former director for intelligence gathering in the State Security Service of Georgia and a member of Parliament since 2016, affiliated with the ruling Georgian Dream party since its rise to power.
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Parliament of Georgia in 2019–2020 and then chair of the Defense and Security Committee since 2020, Beraia has been one of the highest-ranking members of the ruling majority in Georgia and has played a major role in several political developments in recent years. He is known for having made controversial statements about President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, whom he accused of seeking to force Georgia into a war with Russia, for having supported a controversial bill against Western funding of civil society organizations known as the "Foreign Agents bill", for having co-sponsored a bill imposing strict restrictions on public protests, and for having sided with Russia in his vote record as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
On 31 October 2023, Irakli Beraia was involved in a scandal after using lewd comments against a female member of Parliament during a live session of Parliament.
Early life and education
Irakli Beraia was born on 26 October 1978 in then-Soviet Tskhakaia (modern-day Senaki), a large town in Mingrelia. In 1998, he graduated from the Diplomatic Academy of Georgia. In 2006, he received a degree in diplomatic studies from the University of Westminster in London.
Shortly after graduating in 1999, Beraia became the West Georgia coordinator for the Red Cross Society of Georgia, at a time when the region was suffering from an economic and refugee crisis in the fallout of the Georgian Civil War and the war in Abkhazia. In 2001, he briefly served as Red Cross Coordinator for the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region.
Early career
In 2002, Irakli Beraia joined the private sector as Deputy Director General of Ksilotransi, a subsidiary of a major timber company involved in deforestation activities in the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region. Until 2004, he worked as the Forest and Raw Material Department head for that same company, at a time when illegal timber was considered a major challenge related to corruption in Georgian public affairs.
He departed from the company in 2004 and after a three-year gap to study in the United Kingdom, he returned to Georgia and became Deputy Director General of Spetsteknikaresursi, an LLC owned by Russian-Georgian businessman Gocha Khelaia.
In 2007, he was appointed by Economy Minister Giorgi Arveladze as Director of the National Investment Agency, a post he held for a few months only. His official biography fails to mention Irakli Beraia's career between 2008 and 2012.
Government career
During the 2012 parliamentary elections, Irakli Beraia joined Georgian Dream, a party created in opposition to the Mikheil Saakashvili administration by Russian-Georgian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, managing the party's campaign in Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti, a region solidly backing the United National Movement.
Upon the victory of Georgian Dream in those elections, Beraia was appointed by the new Interior Minister Irakli Gharibashvili as Director of the Ministry's Reforms and Development Department. As such, he was responsible for the "depoliticization" campaign within the MIA and for drafting annual strategy papers on behalf of the MIA.[1] In 2014, he announced the introduction of a reform of driving license exam procedures that would have required practical exams, although that reform was never enforced.[2]
Beraia served in that post under the ministerships of Gharibashvili and Alexandre Chikaidze. He received a Special Merit Medal for his work in May 2013.
Intelligence officer
After the 2015 creation of the State Security Service as Georgia's leading domestic intelligence agency, Irakli Beraia was appointed director of the powerful Information-Analytical Department inside the agency, responsible for intelligence gathering.
In the SSSG, he was named the point-person responsible for negotiations with South Ossetian de facto authorities as part of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM), held monthly in Ergneti.[3] In December 2015, Beraia claimed that he had convinced the South Ossetian side to agree to restore a trilateral human rights dialogue mediated by the Red Cross that had been boycotted by Tskhinvali since 2013, although the format was never factually restored.[4] In May 2016, Beraia took part in the first IPRM meeting with Abkhazian authorities since 2012,[5] although tensions surrounding the murder of Georgian civilian Giga Otkhozoria by Abkhazian security forces[6] made the format collapse.
Under his posting, the SSSG took over all monitoring activities related to the conflict zones of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, especially related to increased borderization activities by Russian forces around Tskhinvali.[7]
On 31 December 2015, he was promoted to the rank of Senior Lieutenant of State Security.
References
