IRA suspect charged over attack on British army base

A suspected IRA man was charged in Germany today with a bomb attack on a British army base in Germany nearly 17 years ago.

Leonard Joseph Hardy, 45, was charged by German federal prosecutors with attempted murder in relation to the attack on the base in Osnabruck in 1989.

The man from Antrim was also charged with deliberately causing an explosion, and could face a sentence of life imprisonment if convicted.

Hardy was arrested in the Spanish resort of Torremolinos last August and extradited to Germany last month.

He is suspected of be part of a five-member IRA Active service Unit which attacked the army’s Quebec Barracks on June 19 1989.

The unit planted a series of bombs – containing a total of 265lbs of military-grade plastic explosives – around the base.

One bomb exploded but caused no injuries, while the others failed to explode after the others malfunctioned.

The attack was one of a series on British military bases on the Continent in the late 1980s in which at total of 11 people were killed and 47 injured.

Four other IRA members involved in the Osnabruck attack were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment of between nine and 12 years when found guilty of attempted murder in 1995.

A year after their conviction the base was again attacked by the IRA – this time with mortar bombs – and again those inside had a miraculous escape when two devices exploded.

The base, Britain’s biggest in Germany, was home to the 4th Armoured Brigade - the elite Desert Rats – and the 21 Engineers Battalions. At the time of the attacks it was home to more than 5,000 troops and a similar number of wives and children.

If convicted Hardy faces a lengthy time behind bars.

Because his alleged offence was committed in Germany he falls outside the terms of the Good Friday Agreement which has provided for the early release of terrorists convicted for offences committed before it was signed in 1998.

The Northern Ireland Office said that even if Hardy is convicted, and then wins a transfer to a Northern Ireland jail to be nearer relatives, he would have to serve out whatever sentence the German authorities hand down.