Massereene killer to be sentenced today

A terminally ill dissident republican convicted of murdering two British soldiers will today find out the length of his jail term.

But Brian Shivers (aged 46) is unlikely to outlive the minimum tariff handed to him by judge Mr Justice Anthony Hart at Belfast Crown Court.

The cystic fibrosis sufferer from Co Derry has an estimated four to five years to live and his lawyer has already acknowledged that the court has a duty to impose a term that is much longer.

Shivers, from Magherafelt, was given a life sentence last month after being found guilty of the Real IRA murders of Sappers Patrick Azimkar (aged 21) and Mark Quinsey (aged 23) outside Massereene Army barracks in Antrim on March 7 2009.

The English soldiers from the 38 Engineer Regiment were about to begin a tour of duty in Afghanistan when they were gunned down in an attack by republicans opposed to the Good Friday peace deal of 1998.

Sapper Quinsey, from Birmingham, and Sapper Azimkar, from London, were dressed in their desert fatigues and were within hours of leaving the base.

They were collecting pizzas at the front gate when they came under fire.

Two other soldiers and two pizza delivery drivers were injured in the gun attack.

Shivers' co-accused, high-profile republican Colin Duffy (aged 44) from Lurgan, Co Armagh, was acquitted of the murder charges in the non-jury trial at Antrim Crown Court.

At a pre-tariff hearing last week, a prosecution lawyer urged Justice Hart to impose a term at the higher end of the scale, insisting there were many aggravating factors, including the fact that the murders were politically motivated acts of terrorism.

DNA on matchsticks found in the partially burned-out Vauxhall Cavalier getaway car used in the ambush and abandoned eight miles away proved Shivers' undoing at his trial.

Delivering his reserved judgment in January after a six-week trial, Justice Hart said he was satisfied that he had tried to set the car alight.

The judge has noted that the Crown accepted that Shivers was a secondary party to the murders.

But at the pre-tariff hearing Justice Hart said that would not have a significant influence on the length of term he imposed.