Michael Dickson

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For other uses, see Michael Dickson (disambiguation).

Michael Dickson, as known as Dixie Dickson, (born 29 October 1964), is a former Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer from Greenock, Scotland who was convicted of carrying out a June 1996 mortar attack on a British Army base at Osnabruck, Germany.[1][2]

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[edit] Background

Dickson was born and grew up in Greenock, Scotland.[3] He was a former British soldier and spent six years serving as a HGV driver with the 44 Field Support Squadron, 35th Regiment Royal Engineers. He was stationed at Osnabruck prior to the attack in the 1980s. He left the British Army in 1988 and joined the IRA the following year.[4] After leaving the army he returned to Scotland to work as a delivery driver in the Port Glasgow and Paisley areas. In 1992 he became an Irish citizen after he married his Dundalk-born Irish wife, Anna O'Driscoll.

[edit] Osnabruck mortar attack

Dickson was involved in an attack on the British Army barracks in Osnabruck in 1996.[5] On 28 June 1996, Dickson and four other members of an IRA Amsterdam-based European ASU shelled the Quebec British Army barracks in north-west Germany. Three home-made mortar shells were fired from the back of a Ford Transit van parked near the gates of the largest British Army barracks outside Britain. One of the devices became stuck in its firing tube, a second fell short of its target and the third exploded near a fuel depot. Buildings and vehicles including cars and armoured trucks were hit during the blast, but there were no casualties in the attack. German police believed that Dickson along with another two men and two women including Roisin McAliskey and a Belfast actor named Jimmy Corry were part of the team that attacked the barracks; however, they were unable to apprehend the any of the ASU members.[6][7][8][9]

[edit] On the run

Dickson escaped and for some time evaded capture and was reported to be one of Scotland's "Most wanted men". As he had become an Irish citizen through marriage, he could not be sent from the Republic of Ireland to Germany to face trial because there was no extradition treaty between the two countries.[10] Dickson was arrested in December 2002 on an international arrest warrant relating to the 1996 mortar attack whilst he was driving a lorry-load of contraband cigarettes and tobacco at Ruzyne Airport in the Czech Republic.[4] He was held at Pankrac prison in Prague, and on 13 February 2003, a Czech court ordered that he should be extradited to stand trial in Germany. He was convicted under German law to six and a half years for attempted murder and setting off an explosion. He served his sentence in Celle maximum security prison in Germany, and was released after serving 27 months of his sentence.

[edit] Other paramilitary activity

Dickson is suspected of involvement in the 1996 car bombing of the British Army's Northern Ireland HQ at Thiepval Barracks in Lisburn in which Warrant Officer James Bradwell was killed and 34 civilians injured.[4]

Northumbria Police has also linked Dickson to the attempted assassination of an IRA informer in Tyneside in 1999.[4]

Northumbria Police released a 10-second tape recording of a Scotsman, thought to be Dickson, whom they said had been involved in an armed attack on Martin McGartland. McGartland was badly wounded when he was shot a number of times by three armed and masked men at his home in June 1999.[11]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Man jailed over IRA attack
  2. ^ Suspected IRA bomber loses fight
  3. ^ IRA BOMB SCOT IS NICKED
  4. ^ a b c d Scot IRA Bomber back on the streets
  5. ^ Former soldier wanted over base attack
  6. ^ IRA mortar attack may have been revenge for raid
  7. ^ Germans find hideout used by bombers
  8. ^ McAliskey's daughter wanted for IRA attack
  9. ^ Call for tighter checks on terrorists abroad
  10. ^ Anger as Ireland frees IRA suspect
  11. ^ Former soldier wanted over base attack