A 50-year-old man has been sentenced to a minimum of 22 years in prison with the rest of his life sentence served under licence, for the murder of Northern Ireland prison officer Adrian Ismay in 2016.
Mr Justice Gerry McAlinden told Belfast Crown Court while sentencing Christopher Robinson for the murder that "the defendant played an important and integral role in planning and carrying out the terrorist operation which resulted in the death of Mr Ismay."
Mr Ismay, a 52-year-old married father-of-three, died 11 days after suffering serious leg injuries when the Semtex bomb exploded underneath his van shortly after he had driven away from his east Belfast home.
The New IRA claimed to have carried out the attack on the long-serving officer.
Mr Ismay was released from hospital after the blast and had been making good progress, but he died unexpectedly less than two weeks later when a blood clot triggered a heart attack.
He had worked at Hydebank Wood Young Offenders' Centre in south Belfast, where he trained new recruits to the Prison Service.
After the explosive was detonated under his vehicle shards of shrapnel entered the driver's compartment and he suffered serious leg injuries requiring surgery.
He initially appeared to make a good recovery and was discharged from hospital.
He suddenly deteriorated and was re-admitted to hospital and later died from a heart attack following a DVT thrombosis.
The judge said: "I have no doubt that the defendant knew in advance the nature of the attack which was going to be carried out.
"The defendant knew that this bomb attack, if successful, would result in the death of Mr Ismay or the infliction of serious injury on Mr Ismay and this was the intended outcome of his actions."
Mr Justice McAlinden added: "His murder was perpetrated in pursuance of a twisted republican terrorist ideology.
"In our troubled society prison officers and police officers have been regularly targeted at home and off duty simply because in those environments they are deemed to be easier targets.
"In such circumstances the need for deterrence can be no less acute and obvious."
He said Mr Ismay was murdered by means of planting an improvised explosive device under his vehicle which was parked outside his house.
Mr Justice McAlinden said Robinson searched for information on the internet about the magnetic permeability of aluminium before the device was attached to the van.
He was intimately involved in targeting him over a lengthy period of time.
The defendant checked his target's online profile as well as the opening times of a supermarket near where he lived.
The judge said he knew in advance what type of attack was going to be carried out.
"He had an intimate role in securing, making available, facilitating, the use of and rendering inconspicuous by the addition of a poppy sticker the vehicle used to transport the bomb and bomber who attached the bomb to the underside of Mr Ismay's vehicle to and from the scene."
The judge said he drove the vehicle on the night of the attack to transport another person involved in the attack across Belfast before and after the attack.
Mr Justice McAlinden said the defendant knowingly took steps to minimise the chances of his "intimate and inextricable" involvement being uncovered by turning off his mobile phone at certain times, deleting entries from its memory and putting the sim card and battery out of reach of police.
He also arranged with his brother for CCTV from a nearby hostel to be disconnected and setting the system to "dramatically reduce" the period of retention of images.
He told detectives "blatant and obvious" lies as part of a pre-prepared statement to police during interview.
The judge said he showed not one scintilla of remorse for the suffering inflicted on Mr Ismay and his family.
He read witness statements from Mr Ismay's widow, Sharon, and two of his daughters before sentencing.
He said: "These three statements are heart-wrenching in how they managed with dignified (reserve) to convey just how deeply they loved Mr Ismay and how intensely he loved and in fact adored them.
"Each of these statements, in their own individual and eloquent way, brings home to me the utterly devastating impact that Mr Ismay's death has had, not only on them but on other members of the family."
