On Friday, Magherafelt man Brian Shivers was found guilty over the murder plot, while prominent Lurgan republican Colin Duffy was acquitted.
At 9.40pm on Saturday 7 March 2009, 38 Engineer Regiment were preparing for deployment to Afghanistan early the next day - but when their flight eventually took off, four seats were empty.
Gunmen had opened fire on their missing comrades as they collected a pizza delivery outside the gates of their base at Massereene. Two were dead, the others badly injured.
The Real IRA later admitted it was responsible, branding even the innocent drivers from the local branch of Domino's Pizzas "legitimate targets" as so-called collaborators.
It was too impossible to take in. They just kept saying he’d died of gunshot wounds and that it’s not Afghanistan, it’s Northern Ireland.
Geraldine Ferguson, mother of Sapper Patrick Azimkar
"As far as they're concerned, our child's life is nothing compared to the importance of their belief," Geraldine Ferguson said of the gunmen who shot dead Sapper Patrick Azimkar - her 21-year-old son.
The young Londoner, who had been a promising footballer and once had a trial with Tottenham Hotspur, had only been in the Army for less than three years at the time of his death alongside his friend and colleague, 23-year-old Sapper Mark Quinsey.
And it hadn't been his first choice of career - he had intended learning a trade like his father and starting his own business, he joined up because of the training opportunities on offer.
But Patrick's parents recalled his pride at being a Royal Engineer, the friendships he made and how much their son enjoyed the time he spent based in Northern Ireland.
"Every time he came home, he say how friendly the people were and how he loved it over there," his dad Mehmet Azimkar said.
"He said he wouldn't mind settling there - he liked Northern Ireland and he liked Belfast."
While Patrick's family were aware of Northern Ireland's troubled past, concerns for their son's safety there couldn't have been further from their minds.
"We thought it was safe there because it had been such a long time since the shooting of a British soldier - Patrick was only nine when that happened. Just a little boy ..." his mum said.
I was thinking it can’t be anything really serious because Pat hasn’t even got to Afghanistan yet – we kept saying you must have got the wrong person.
Geraldine Ferguson
"We were really worried about him going to Afghanistan, but you just have to accept that as part of being in the Army. We'd never worried about him being in Northern Ireland."
Patrick's parents said he wasn't the type on dwell on negative things, but once - while on leave ahead of the deployment to Afghanistan and under the guise of having his head in the fridge - he did raise the subject of something happening to him while on duty.
"Without looking at us, he said: 'If I don't come back from Afghanistan, I don't want you lot all moping around and being soppy - you've got to get on with your lives'," Geraldine said.
"And we said: 'Oh Patrick, don't be silly - everything's going to be fine'."
She added: "Sometimes, when it's so difficult to get through the day, Mehmet will say: 'Remember what Patrick said'."
While Geraldine and Mehmet say they have done their best to listen to their son and cope with the pain of his loss, it has been a difficult journey - particularly having to endure reliving what happened during the often gruelling trial and even being faced with CCTV footage of their son's killing.
"I didn't think I could quite face that and I left at that point," Geraldine admitted, but her husband insisted he wanted to know exactly what had happened to his son.
"I wanted to know exactly how did an innocent boy just pop out to get a pizza and get ... blown away," Mehmet said. "It was very distressing. It's still distressing."
Geraldine added: "Nobody can take away the reality of what you have to sit through."
These people, as far as I’m concerned, are evil. They committed an evil act.
Mehmet Azimkar, father of Sapper Patrick Azimkar
Patrick's family still don't understand what could push someone to take a life and say that no cause is worth the pain and suffering brought by such an act.
"Why would anybody - especially people in their middle-age, not young hotheads - plan to carry this out against somebody they don't know, against somebody else's child? Why?" his mum asked.
"Particularly when there's a peace agreement that seems to be working for virtually everyone else."
But they have been bolstered by the support received in the wake of the gun attack, as messages of sympathy poured in amid shock and revulsion across Northern Ireland and beyond.
"You can see how sorry people over there are," Mehmet said.
His wife added: "It's been a very strange journey because, from this tremendous burst of the most terrible thing that could ever happen, came something which helped us cope.
"Tremendous love and support and care carried us and helped us to get through.
"And this came from all over, from all sorts of people. Family and friends, colleagues, the Army and PSNI ... from strangers - hundreds and hundreds of strangers who wrote to us."
But asked if forgiveness was possible for the gunmen who robbed them of their son, Geraldine said: "I think you can only forgive people if there's remorse.
"I think if the killers were very, very remorseful and somehow we knew that they were genuinely remorseful, then I might think about it."
Regardless of Friday's trial verdicts, Geraldine and Mehmet know they have been robbed of their son and of the future - the daughter-in-law and grandchildren - their family could have had and will now never know.
