Modřany
What was the residence of Václav Jelínek from 1944 to 1975?
Václav Jelínek Václav Jelínek ( born August 23 , 1944 ) was a Cold War era Czechoslovak spy , who worked in London under the assumed identity of Erwin van Haarlem . Jelínek was born on 23 August 1944 in Modřany near Prague ( now part of the city ) . The real Erwin van Haarlem was born on 22 August 1944 , the son of Johanna van Haarlem , a woman of Dutch and Jewish ancestry who had been raped by Gregor Kulig , a Polish soldier and Nazi with whom she had been fraternising . Soon after Erwins birth , by which time Kulig had already been killed in action , he was given up for adoption in Holešovice , Prague . He was later listed in the Netherlands as a missing person . After compulsory national service , Jelínek became a sergeant , working for the Ministry of the Interior . He was recruited by the Czechoslovak secret police , the Státní bezpečnost ( StB ) . In 1967 Václav Jelínek was transferred from the V . Directorate ( Protection of State and Government Officials ) to the I . Directorate of the Security Corps . Shortly afterwards , his special training to become a member of the illegal intelligence started . He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant . He adopted van Haarlems identity and moved to London in June 1975 , using a genuine Dutch passport , illicitly obtained in van Haarlems name . He obtained work at the Hilton Hotel restaurant on Park Lane , and began spying on the United Kingdom and United States , for the StB and for the KGB , their equivalent in the Soviet Union . His handler was Deputy Colonel Josef Kafka . Jelínek was decorated by the KGB on 25 March 1986 . Although he posed as a Dutch national , he never lived in the Netherlands . When Johanna van Haarlem contacted him , in 1977 , believing him to be her real son , he was ordered to play along , in order not to blow his cover , and did so , even going so far as to visit her family in Holland . As a result of this deception , she was not reunited with her real son until February 1992 . Eventually , Jelínek tired of working as a waiter , and , with funding from the StB , bought a flat at Silver Birch Close in Friern Barnet , North London and set up as an art dealer . He was eventually arrested in the flat on 22 April 1988 , while in the process of receiving coded messages by radio . His trial for espionage at Londons Old Bailey opened on 6 February 1989 and was the first trial of a spy in the United Kingdom since 1961 . A Metropolitan Police officer said he was probably the first person to be tried at the Old Bailey under an alias . Among those to testify against him was Stella Rimington , using the alias Miss J . The jury returned a guilty verdict after just 45 minutes deliberation , and on 3 March 1989 he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment . He was subsequently held at HM Prison Parkhurst . While he was in Parkhurst , the 1989 Velvet Revolution saw the overthrow of communism in Czechoslovakia . On 1 January 1993 , Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved , with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia . Following an unsuccessful escape attempt and a period on hunger strike , as well as lobbying on his behalf by Czech diplomats , Jelínek was freed on 5 April 1993 and deported to the Czech Republic . In 2006 , VPRO , a radio station in the Netherlands , ran a two-part programme about van Haarlem , called ( The trail back ) . His memoirs , written up by were published in Czech in 2010 , under the title . As of 2016 , Jelínek was living in Prague .