KYIV, October 14 – The son of dreaded Soviet secret police chief Lavrenty Beria, who fought to clear his father’s name of the crimes for which he was executed, has died in Ukraine, a newspaper said on Saturday.
The Fakty daily said Beria’s sone Sergo Gegechkori, 75, whose request for a pardon for his father was rejected by a Russian military court in May, died of a heart attack in his Kiev apartment.
Gegechkori said the charges against his father, which led to his execution by shooting in 1953 after the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, were trumped up.
After Stalin’s death, Beria was arrested on charges which included rape, terror and spying for 14 foreign countries.
Beria oversaw a reign of terror by the NKVD secret police in which millions of people were murdered or sent to prison camps. Beria also personally oversaw the creation of the Soviet Union’s first atomic bomb, detonated in a test in 1949.
