A man who shot dead a dissident republican in a pub car park in Co Meath has been jailed for life.
Dean Evans, 27, of Grange Park Rise, Raheny, Dublin, admitted being the gunman who shot dead Peter Butterly outside The Huntsman Inn, Gormanston, Co Meath, on 6 March 2013.
He was extradited from Spain earlier this year after a year-and-a-half on the run.
He handed in a letter to the Special Criminal Court expressing his regret and remorse, saying he was not the man today he was five years ago.
Evans is the third person to be convicted of the murder of the 35-year-old father of three at the Huntsman Inn five years ago.
Butterly was waiting in the car park to meet someone when Evans was driven in and fired two shots which hit the bonnet and the windscreen of his car.
Butterly fled but Evans fired five more shots, hitting him three times and fatally injuring him in the back and neck.
Gardaí had the killers under surveillance and while one said an act of contrition into the dying man's ear, others followed the car and stopped and arrested the killers.
Evans first trial collapsed and he fled to Spain on the eve of his second trial, spending almost a year and a half on the run.
He was caught living and working as a barman in Fuengirola, was extradited and pleaded guilty to the murder.
In a victim impact statement Butterly's widow, Eithne, asked when planning the murder did Evans think of how she would tell their three children of their father's "cold, cruel and cowardly" killing.
"Ask yourself the question," she wrote.
Evans apologised in court for what he had done.
He said the decisions made five years ago are not decisions he would make today or in the future.
He was sentenced to the mandatory term of life in prison.
