Levan Izoria

Levan Izoria (Georgian: ლევან იზორია; born 5 February 1974) is a Georgian government official who became the country's Minister of Defense on 1 August 2016.

Izoria graduated from the Tbilisi State University (TSU) with a degree in law in 1996 and continued his postgraduate studies at the University of Göttingen, where he obtained a PhD in law in 2002. He then pursued an academic career in Georgia, teaching law, inter alia, at the TSU. From 2004 to 2006, he served as rector of the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia. As a member of the Our Georgia–Free Democrats party (OG-FD), he ran in the Chkhorotsku single-mandate constituency, but lost race to a ruling United National Movement party candidate during the October 2012 parliamentary election which brought the Georgian Dream coalition, of which the OG–FD was part, to power.^[1] As a result, Izoria became Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and served in that capacity until August 2015, when he was appointed Deputy Head of Georgia’s State Security Service. When the OG–FD left the Georgian Dream coalition in November 2014, Izoria quit the party and remained in the government. Izoria was appointed Minister of Defense after his predecessor, Tina Khidasheli, resigned on 1 August 2016. Khidasheli was critical of the decision, saying appointment of a security official to the defense ministry was a "mistake".^[2]

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