President Saakashvili has appointed ex-Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili as new head of the intelligence department – an agency directly under his control.

“This is a real intelligence service – like the ones we see in the movies,” Saakashvili said on February 1. “In light of Georgia's extremely difficult geopolitical situation, the top priority of this agency will be to provide us with precise and unbiased information about what is going on around us. This agency needs to be seriously strengthened. For various reasons it [the intelligence service] has [so far] failed to produce the product we expected from it… The Georgian government needs precise information to make correct decisions. This agency has a large network and I hope it starts working with the current difficult situation in mind.”

There is also a counter-intelligence service within the Interior Ministry.

Saakashvili praised Bezhuashvili, who replaces Ana Zhvania, saying he was his “personal friend for twenty years.”

“I am appointing a person who is capable of building a new agency from scratch,” he said. “I trust Gela, who is a professional… I trust him as he can make an unbiased analysis and impartial prognosis.”

“Usually I send Gela to an agency with lots of problems,” Saakashvili said. “He laid the foundations for the Defense Ministry, built the National Security Council from scratch, and of course hugely improved things at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

Bezhuashvili served as Defense Minister for a few months in 2004, before being appointed as secretary of the National Security Council in June 2004. He then became Foreign Minister in October 2005, replacing Salome Zourabichvili, who is now an opposition politician.

Bezhuashvili, who graduated from the Ukrainian Institute of International Relations and International Law in 1991 and obtained a Master of Law degree in international law at the Southern Methodist University School of Law, Dallas in 1997, served in the Georgian Foreign Ministry in 1991-2000. He was also Georgia’s Ambassador to Kazakhstan. In 2000-2003 he served as Deputy Defense Minister under ex-President Eduard Shevardnadze.

Bezhuashvili’s brother, lawmaker Davit Bezhuashvili, is a founding member of the Georgian Industrial Group (GIG) - a giant company with diversified business interests ranging from coal mining and energy to travel. GIG has a 45% shareholding in both Rustavi 2 and Mze television stations.

Bezhuashvili’s proposed appointment as the head of the intelligence department, announced on January 30, was a surprise, given PM Lado Gurgenidze's earlier announcement that Bezhuashvili had decided to quit public life in favour of the private sector.