A loyalist who shot a Catholic taxi driver five times in the head in Drumcree has been convicted of murder.
Clifford McKeown (44), who was convicted at Belfast Crown Court, is expected to receive a life sentence next month.
Mr Michael McGoldrick, a 37-year-old father-of-two, was shot dead at the wheel of his cab in July 1996 at the height of a violent Orange Order stand-off at Drumcree, Portadown.
McKeown, of Parkmore, Craigavon, Co Armagh had denied his part in the sectarian murder. He was found guilty after confessing that the brutal execution was a birthday present for his close associate Billy "King Rat" Wright, another Mid Ulster loyalist paramilitary.
McKeown, the court heard, confessed his guilt as he awaited trial for the McGoldrick murder while serving a 12 year sentence for possessing guns.
In the summer of 1999, when he was asked by an English investigative freelance journalist who killed the father-of-two, McKeown boasted: "You're looking at him."
Mr Justice Weatherup today said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the confession was a reliable and true account of the murder.
During the trial it also emerged McKeown and his loyalist henchmen planned to kidnap three Catholic priests and shoot them if Orangemen were not allowed to march down the hotly disputed Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Co Armagh. The operation was aborted, however, amid fears of revenge attacks by republican terrorists.
Instead, Mr McGoldrick was targeted after collecting a fare outside a leisure complex in Lurgan. He drove to a country lane on the outskirts of Lurgan where McKeown lay in wait. The murderer opened the back door of the cab and pumped four bullets into the back of his victim's head. He then fired a fifth shot to "finish the job", the court heard.