A former All-Ireland winning minor footballer was found guilty yesterday of kidnapping, robbing and threatening to kill a taxi driver.
Robert Tasker stood shaking his head in the dock as was convicted of the four "very serious offences" he faced.
It took a jury of seven men and five women around three hours to convict the 26-year-old on majority verdicts of kidnapping, robbing, threatening to kill and assaulting Paul Kelly in November 2016.
His co-accused Antoin McCooey (25) was also found guilty of the same charges.
Tasker was part of the Armagh side which won the All-Ireland minor football title in 2009. Seen as a rising star in the sport, he failed to live up to his promise in later years and only played a few games for the Armagh senior team.
The trial heard that he threatened to slice Mr Kelly's throat and rape him during a journey from Dundalk to Cullyhanna.
Giving evidence on Monday, the taxi driver told how he was "absolutely terrified" as Tasker held a Stanley knife to his throat.
He also described how McCooey threatened to stab him with a flat head screwdriver during the 25-minute journey.
The pair, who were said to have turned "pure evil", also robbed the taxi driver of €120 in takings.
The two men, from separate addresses at St Patrick's Park, Cullyhanna, had denied all the charges against them but declined to give evidence in the trial.
Newry Crown Court heard that Mr Kelly had picked up the two men from a Chinese restaurant in Dundalk just after midnight on November 29 2016.
During the journey, Tasker began talking in highly-sexualised language from the back seat, before putting a knife to the throat of the taxi driver.
"It was a Stanley knife, he said to me 'Don't move or I'll slice your throat and I'll kill you'," Mr Kelly said.
He told how McCooey then produced a "flat head screwdriver and it had a nut on the top of it" and made stabbing motions with the weapon.
The victim told the trial he thought "I was going to die".
“The man in the back kept saying he was going to rape me... he kept saying this all the time, the whole way nearly to Cullyhanna," he said.
"...I've never felt fear like it in all my life.
“I kept thinking of my kids, it was close to Christmas and I thought they weren’t going to have their Daddy for Christmas.”
Judge Melody McReynolds sent the jury out to consider their verdicts before lunchtime yesterday.
At around 4.30pm, the two men were found guilty by majority verdicts of all four charges against them.
Tasker, dressed in a blue jacket and white open-necked shirt, kept shaking his head and looking towards his family and friends seated in the public gallery.
He gave a thumbs up to relatives as he was later led away.
McCooey, who was wearing a maroon t-shirt and jeans, gave little emotion when the verdicts were read aloud.
A prosecution barrister objected to bail being granted ahead of sentencing.
Judge McReynolds told the court she was "obliged to balance the interests of the defendants and the interest of the public" when considering if the two men should be released.
But she said there was a "very real flight risk for each defendant" and remanded the men into custody.
The pair will be sentenced on June 18.
