Man jailed over IRA attack

Dickson was jailed over the Osnabruck attack

A former soldier has been sentenced to six and a half years for his part in an IRA mortar attack on a British army base in Germany.

Michael Dickson, 38, from Greenock in Scotland, was charged with attempted murder.

Prosecutors at his trial in Germany said Dickson was one of five members of an IRA "active service unit" which shelled the base in Osnabruck in north-west Germany on 28 June 1996.

Three home-made mortar shells were fired at the Quebec Barracks, the Ministry of Defence's largest base outside Britain.

Two of the devices failed to go off, the third exploded near a fuel depot. There were no casualties in the attack.

Michael Dickson insisted he was innocent

Dickson insisted that he was innocent and was never in the IRA.

Dickson is a former British soldier who had once served in an engineering unit at the German base.

He was detained in the Czech Republic a year ago and extradited in April to Germany to stand trial.