Zviad Kharazishvili
Georgian former senior police official; director of the Special Tasks Department from 2019 to 2025
Zviad Kharazishvili (Georgian: ზვიად ხარაზიშვილი; born 20 March 1975), commonly known by the nickname Khareba (Georgian: ხარება), is a Georgian law enforcement officer and police colonel. He headed the Special Tasks Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia until 10 June 2025. Published sources disagree on when he was appointed: Byline Times gives September 2019, while Netgazeti and Civil Georgia give 2021. He had previously served in the Special State Protection Service of Georgia, units of the Interior Ministry, and the State Security Service of Georgia (SSSG), where he commanded a special-purpose unit known as Shavnabada.
Kharazishvili became widely known for commanding units used to disperse demonstrations and for allegations of excessive force. Between 2024 and 2025, the United States, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the Czech Republic imposed restrictive measures on him, stating that he bore responsibility for serious human-rights abuses. On 30 January 2025, he received Georgia's Order of Honor.
Background and nickname
Kharazishvili was born on 20 March 1975. His official asset declarations and the profile published by Byline Times give his birthplace as Khashuri. The record maintained by the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) instead gives Kareli as his birthplace.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Zviad Kharazishvili” as georgian former senior police official; director of the Special Tasks Department from 2019 to 2025. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as georgian former senior police official; director of the Special Tasks Department from 2019 to 2025. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q131388164. VIAF identifies the subject as 2629173731403711890003. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1975, 2025, 2019 and 2021.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Zviad Kharazishvili” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.