Residency

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A residency is a representation of an intelligence service abroad. A distinction is made between legal (official) and illegal (camouflaged) residences.

Legal residence

A legal residency is a more or less recognizable base of the intelligence service (e.g. in friendly countries) integrated into an official representation of a country ( embassy or consulate ). Their existence is officially known to the host country.

This is to be distinguished from a legally covered residency , in which the intelligence service employees - often as a group / organizational unit - work legally and with official permission on the soil of the foreign state, but their mission or their actual activity is legendary , i.e. H. the employee to cover an official activity e.g. B. as a diplomat, foreign trader or journalist.

It has become common practice to only designate the head of the residence as a resident, to whom the other employees are subordinate.

Illegal residence

An illegal residency is a residency that is camouflaged and, if possible, kept secret from the authorities of the host country.

There are fluid transitions between these types of residences: Since intelligence work for foreign states is prohibited in most countries, it is often a matter of political decisions how to deal with the residences and their staff (the residents).

Examples

Most of the residencies worldwide are in the embassies of the respective states; this is the typical practice. The residents have diplomatic accreditations and sometimes enjoy immunity . In the annual reports of the protection of the constitution , z. B. often referred to the residencies of the various services of North Korea and the PR China in their Berlin embassies .

In addition, trade missions, consulates or cultural or language institutes often serve as residences.

The Federal Intelligence Service (BND) maintained in 2011 at German embassies and consulates general worldwide 84 residencies, z. B. at the German embassies in Washington, DC , Baghdad and Kabul as well as at the Consulate General in Erbil .

Individual evidence

  1. Marc Kayser: What can the BND do? January 23, 2011 ( welt.de [accessed September 16, 2019]).