FIVE Celtic supporters have been sentenced to prison for attacking police in the Netherlands before the club's Champions League tie.

Andy Vance, 21, from Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, and Padraig Mullan, 28, from Belfast, were among the group involved in the violence in the city's famous Dam Square.

They have been in custody since the incident before Neil Lennon's team lost 1-0 on November 6.

It is understood they are considering or have lodged appeals against their convictions.

Two of the accused will spend six weeks in prison for throwing beer cans when rioting broke out in the square.

A fifth man received one month in prison. Another accused was cleared due to lack of evidence.

The judge in the case also awarded €250 (£208) in damages shared between three police officers, and €500 (£416) to a single officer.

Christian Visser, the lawyer representing the Celtic fans, had a plea for the case to be rejected dismissed.

He told the court his clients had mistaken the police for football hooligans because they were dressed casually and did not show their police IDs to the suspects.

He asked the judge to dismiss the case on the grounds that police had used "inadmissable violence, did not disclose full information and did not identify themselves" as police officers, adding that had taken pictures of the suspects on their private mobile phones and "made jokes about them".

Mr Visser suggested the local police chief had wrongly claimed one of the suspects was drunk and had hit an officer.

Prosecutors said it was the police who were wounded in attacks by Celtic fans, and that restraint had to be used against fans who were resisting arrest. They added that some of the fans were so drunk that they "did not even respond to the inflicting of pain".

The men are to be released on Friday morning and will serve their sentences later.