Sergo Gegechkori; Sought Pardon for Stalin-Era Father

Sergo Gegechkori, 75, who tried in vain to clear his father’s name of crimes committed in the Soviet Union’s Stalinist era. His request for a pardon for his father, dreaded Soviet secret police chief Lavrenty Beria, was rejected by a Russian military court in May. Beria was executed by a firing squad in 1953 for rape, terror and spying for 14 foreign countries. Beria oversaw a reign of terror by the NKVD secret police under dictator Josef Stalin, which ended in the murder or imprisonment of millions of people. Gegechkori’s father also personally oversaw the creation of the Soviet Union’s first atomic bomb, detonated in a test in 1949. Gegechkori steadfastly claimed that the charges against his father had been trumped up. Reported Saturday in Kiev, Ukraine, of a heart attack.