British military personnel had been stationed in West Germany since the end of the Second World War. The Provisional IRA had been carrying out attacks in mainland Europe since 1979. Between 1988 and 1990 it intensified its operations there. On 1 May 1988, three members of the Royal Air Force were killed in two IRA attacks in the Netherlands. One of the attacks took place in Roermond. On 12 August, Richard Michael Heakin, a British sergeant-major was shot dead at Ostend, Belgium. In June 1989, a British base in Osnabrück was bombed and the following month a British soldier was killed by an IRA booby trap bomb in Hanover. Cars owned by British military personnel in Germany had distinctive number plates, which helped the IRA identify targets. In August 1988, following the killing of the three RAF members, they were replaced with standard British number plates. Critics of the move warned that British tourists would be at risk as their cars would be indistinguishable from soldiers' cars. On 7 September 1989 German civilian Heidi Hazell, the wife of a British soldier, was shot dead as she sat in a car outside a British Army married quarter in Unna. The car had British number plates. The IRA expressed regret for the death and stated she had been shot "in the belief that she was a member of the British army garrison at Dortmund". On 28 October 1989, IRA members opened fire on the car of RAF corporal Mick Islania. The corporal had just returned to the car from a petrol station snack bar in Wildenrath. Also in the car were his wife Smita and their six-month-old daughter Nivruti. Corporal Islania was hit by multiple rounds and died instantly; his daughter was killed by a single shot to the head. Smita Islania suffered shock. The IRA expressed regret for the child's death and stated its members did not know she was in the car.
The shooting
Nick Spanos and Stephen Melrose were Australian lawyers, based in London. They were in the Netherlands on a four-day holiday with Vicky Coss and Lyndal Melrose. On the night of 27 May 1990, the two couples had a meal at a restaurant in the town of Roermond, near the border with West Germany. The town was popular with off-duty British servicemen stationed in Germany; the Royal Air Force bases of RAF Wildenrath, RAF Bruggen and JHQ Rheindahlen were nearby. As they returned to their car, at about 11pm, Spanos and Melrose were shot dead by two men clad in black with automatic weapons. The women were unhurt. The car used by the gunmen was found burnt-out in Belgium, the border of which is also nearby Roermond.
Aftermath
The IRA claimed responsibility the next day. Its statement said that its members mistook the two men for off-duty British soldiers and called the shooting "a tragedy and a mistake". The car used by Spanos and Melrose had British number plates, and Dutch police believed this may have led to them being targeted. Australian Prime MinisterBob Hawke described the statement of regret as "twisted, too late and meaningless." Five days after the attack, the IRA shot dead Michael Dillon-Lee, a British Army major, in Dortmund. Two weeks later, it bombed a British Army base at Hanover. Paul Hughes, Donna Maguire, Sean Hick, and Gerard Harte were arrested in Belgium in June 1990, and were later charged with the murders of Spanos, Melrose and Major Dillon-Lee. Harte was convicted of the murders of Spanos and Melrose and sentenced to 18 years in prison, but his conviction was overturned on appeal. The other three were acquitted of the Roermond murders, but then extradited to Germany and tried for the murder of Major Dillon-Lee. All three were acquitted as well, although Maguire was remanded and later convicted of taking part in bombing a British Army base in the Osnabrück mortar attack. Evidence also linked Desmond Grew, an IRA volunteer later shot dead by the Special Air Service, to the group.
