Suspected IRA German hideout found

GERMAN detectives have found a holiday home they believe was used as a hideout by the IRA unit responsible for last Friday's mortar attack on a British army barracks in Osnabruck.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office said yesterday that investigators were now searching for three men and two women who stayed at the house near the northern city of Oldenburg from June lath until the morning of the attack on June 29th.

Police found a map of Osnabruck inside the house along with Ia hand drawn sketch with streets and British army installations marked. Three cars were found near the house, two of them rented and one with a Northern Ireland registration.

Nobody was hurt in the attack in Osnabruck, in which three mortars were fired from a Ford Transit van but only one exploded. Police seized a second van with a false British registration yesterday at a motorway service station near Oldenburg.

They say that both vans arrived at Le Havre from Cork on June 123rd, and then were driven to Germany. The vehicle discovered yesterday was seen near Quebec Barracks 30 minutes before the mortars were fired.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office said yesterday that the holiday home near Oldenburg was discovered on Monday and that two men and a woman who moved in there on June 15th were later joined by another man and a woman. Police are examining a small Daimler Benz Sprinter vehicle and a 7.5 ton IVECO van hired from a car rental firm as well as a blue Ford Orion with a Northern Ireland registration.

Investigators will now concentrate on identifying the five people seen at the holiday home. The evidence now points to the existence of an IRA group on the continent similar to that responsible for the campaign in the late 1980s.

"We can assume that the perpetrators were seen with the identified vehicles in connection with other houses too", a spokesman said.

The discoveries are a major success for the German authorities who were criticised in Britain for their handling of the last IRA campaign in Germany that ended six years ago. Although three lengthy trials produced four convictions, there are now no IRA prisoners in German jails.

The RUC in Belfast has confirmed that a German detective is in Northern Ireland "on liaison duties", but refused to comment on reports that this was connected to the discovery of the IRA "safe house" during the investigation into the Osnabruck attack.