Lavrentiy Fomich Tsanava (Russian: Лаврентий Фомич Цанава; Georgian: ლავრენტი ცანავა), born Lavrentiy Janjghava (Russian: Лаврентий Джанджгава; Georgian: ლავრენტი ჯანჯღავა; 9 August 1900 – 12 October 1955), was a Soviet politician and lieutenant general who served as the head of the Committee for State Security of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (NKVD) from 1941 until 1951.
According to an investigation conducted 33 years later: In August 1922, acting as the head of the Politburo of the Cheka in the Telavi district of Georgia, Tsanava, who then bore the surname Janjgava, abused his official position and, in addition, kidnapped a girl with a weapon.
After Beria's appointment as first secretary of the Georgian communist party, in 1931, Tsanava was transferred to economic work, initially as Georgia's Deputy People's Commissar for State Farms.
[4] In January 1948, Tsanava received an order that came from Joseph Stalin via Abakumov's deputy, Sergei Ogoltsov, to murder the renowned Jewish actor, Solomon Mikhoels.
[2] But in August 1953, he wrote a letter from Butyrka prison hospital pleading for his release, claiming that he had been victimised as an act of revenge "on the part of enemy of the people Beria and his inner circle".