A 50-year-old man who shot his friend and dumped his dismembered body in a canal in January 2016 has been convicted of murder.
Paul Wells Snr of Barnamore Park, Finglas, had admitted shooting Kenneth O'Brien and dismembering his body, but he denied a charge of murder.
He claimed to have shot Mr O'Brien as they struggled during a row.
The jury returned the guilty verdict after deliberating for just over five hours at the end of a three-week trial.
Wells Snr has been sentenced to life in prison.
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Mr O'Brien's torso was recovered from a suitcase found floating in the Grand Canal near Celbridge, Co Kildare.
Wells Snr claimed that the row happened because Mr O'Brien had asked him to kill his partner Eimear Dunne and he refused to do it.
After Mr O'Brien was shot, Wells Snr dismembered his body in his back yard in Finglas with a chainsaw, and threw the remains in the Grand Canal.
He claims he panicked about disposing of the body and chopped it up using a chainsaw he had borrowed from the deceased.
He was arrested after his son Paul Wells Jnr, "self reported" to gardaí. Mr Wells Jnr faces a charge in relation to the disposal of the chainsaw.
The prosecution told the jury the killing was not just murder but was a premeditated execution.
Senior Counsel Sean Gillane said his story about shooting during a struggle did not add up because the post mortem had shown Mr O'Brien had been killed by a single shot from a gun which had been pressed against the back of the head.
He pointed to evidence that Wells Snr knew his wife and son would be away that night and had told another son not to come to home on the night of the shooting.
Mr Gillane said the story about Mr O'Brien wanting his partner Eimear Dunne killed was "a nonsense wrapped in self defeating contradictions".
However, defence counsel Michael O'Higgins told the jury the evidence supported Wells Snr's claims about a murder plot against Ms Dunne.
He said it was clear that Mr O'Brien had been lying about where he was to be on the day he was shot, his passport and a suitcase were missing from his house and he had deleted phone numbers of his employers from his partner's phone.
The trial also heard he had been in a relationship with a woman in Australia and had told his employer there he would be returning after Christmas.
He told the jury to consider a number of other facts which Wells Snr had disclosed which at first seemed improbable but turned out to be true.
He said while the prosecution had sought to discredit his claims about the plot to kill Ms Dunne, it had not put forward any other reason for the killing except a vague mention of money.
The trial heard that Mr O'Brien had transferred around €50,000 to Wells Snr’s bank accounts while he was living in Australia.
Mr O'Higgins said on a legal level, whether the row was over money or a request to kill his partner, it was largely irrelevant because "you will finish at the same point where a gun was taken up and fired in a manner that was justified by law".
If the jury believed that Wells Snr honestly believed the gun could have been used on him that night, and he had discharged it in self defence, the law provided that you were entitled to "fight fire with fire", then they must acquit, he said.
He also said that if the jury believed Mr Wells honestly believed his life was in danger but fired the gun in an overreaction, they could find him guilty of manslaughter.
'Our lives would never be the same again'
In a victim impact statement Kenneth O'Brien's father Gerry said there were no words to describe the trauma and desolation felt since his murder. He said their lives would never be the same again and they had been left without their first born child.
He added: "The worst part was being told our son was a torso in a suitcase.
The utter disregard shown for our child as a human being and the barbaric nature in which he was treated was an affront to all who knew him."
He described his son as hard working all his life and said he would always be on their minds and forever in their hearts.
A victim impact statement read on behalf of Mr O'Brien's partner Eimear Dunne said they had been looking forward to a fresh start after he returned from Australia.
She said she could not put in to words the feelings she experienced in the days and weeks after finding out he had been murdered in the most gruesome way.
"No mother should ever have to tell their son that his idol was never coming home," she said. She said the impact on an innocent four-year-old was immeasurable.
