A Scottish man suspected of IRA membership goes on trial in northern Germany today charged with attempted murder in a 1996 mortar attack on a British military base.
Mr Michael Dickson (38), from Strathclyde, was arrested in Prague last December and extradited in April to Germany, where he has remained in custody pending his trial at thestate court in Celle.
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Michael Robert Dickson from Britain, who is charged with attempted murder in a 1996 mortar attack on British Quebec Barracks in Osnabrueck, Germany
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In addition to the attempted murder charge, he is also accused of setting off an explosion. The trial is scheduled to last until early January.
Mr Dickson is suspected to have been a member of a five-strong IRA "active service unit" that shelled a British army base in the northwestern German townof Osnabrueck on June 28th, 1996.
The IRA claimed responsibility for firing three homemade mortar shells from an abandoned minivan on to the Quebec Barracks, causing material damage but noinjuries among the 150 people who were at the facility.Mr Dickson, a former British soldier, had once served in an engineering unit atthe base.
Police in the North have said Mr Dickson is also a suspect in the 1996 bombing of the British army's Northern Ireland headquarters, and in the 1999 shooting of a former police spy within the IRA, Martin McGartland, who survived theattack.
AP