Moses Mathias was one of three gunmen who murdered Giuseppe, a 16-year-old from Ardwick, outside the Robin Hood pub in Stretford in May 2009.
At a Manchester Crown Court sentencing hearing Mathias – who was just 15 at the time of the killing – was given a life term.
In August 2009, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) took the unusual step of naming the then youth Moses Mathias as a wanted suspect for the murder of 16-year-old Giuseppe Gregory.
Huge photographs of Mathias were beamed on to a big screen in Piccadilly Gardens in central Manchester as police also offered a £15,000 reward for information to track him down.
Mathias, now 18, remained at large until he was arrested in Amsterdam earlier this year on a European Arrest Warrant after a joint investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency and GMP.
He was flown back to the UK in June and four months later admitted the murder of the youngster who was gunned down in the early hours of May 11 2009 in a car outside the Robin Hood pub in Stretford.
Mathias, formerly of Randlesham Street, Prestwich, was obsessed with gang culture and even got a tattoo pledging his allegiance to the Gooch gang.
Script on his arm reads ‘Loc’ – a term used by Los Angeles Crips which means ‘crazy’, short for the Spanish slang term ‘loco’.
Rusholme-raised Mathias, now 18, even told a police officer who visited his school that he was friends with Gooch gang members – and filled his Facebook pages with pictures of his encounters with them.
Mathias spoke in court about the murder publicly for the first time and claimed the fatal shooting came about by coincidence.
The teenager, who spent two years on the run in the continent in the aftermath of the killing, admitted murder earlier this year.
But he disputed the prosecution’s theory that the shooting was a bungled revenge attack targeting Travis Bailey, another youth who was in the car which Giuseppe was a passenger in when he was killed.
Giving evidence on his version of events, he told the court that on the night of the murder he and his accomplices, Njabulo Ndlovu and Hiruy Zerihun, who are both serving life for the crime, had only planned to rob the Robin Hood.
But just as he and Zerihun prepared for the job by cocking their weapons in a nearby alley they saw a car driving towards them, Mathias told court. He claimed he heard ‘bangs’, panicked, and opened fire believing the vehicle contained gangland enemies.
 “I didn’t know where the bangs were coming from”, he said. “I didn’t know what was going on. I feared for my life. When the car drove off we didn’t know we’d hit it, we just thought we’d scared them away.”
“I was there, and we murdered, but we didn’t meant to at the time”, he added.
The prosecution say that the shooting was a Gooch gang attack in revenge for the killing of Louis Brathwaite, gunned down the year before in a Withington betting shop.
Travis Bailey had been arrested in suspicion of murdering Louis, but was told he would face no charges days before the shooting at the Robin Hood.
Mathias told court that he did not know Louis Braithwaite and did not know Giuseppe’s party would be at the pub that night.
He denied being a member of a gang, although he admitted associating with gang members and being ‘steeped’ in the culture.
The shooting was understood to have targeted Gooch gang members in revenge for the killing of 24-year-old Tyrone Gilbert, a member of rival gang the Longsight Crew, hours earlier.
Mathias, 19, formerly of Randlesham Street, Prestwich, was given a life term and told he will serve a minimum of 18 years.
Mathias was stopped in the street by police in Manchester just over a week after the murder but was not a suspect at the time.
He was found in possession of notepaper which had lyrics on it which referenced 'The Terminator' and 'Letting Shots Off'.
When detectives subsequently raided his family home in Prestwich, other rap poetry he had composed was discovered, the court heard.
Among the verses he had written were the words: "Kill One Nigger Then Be Gone. Away From The Homeland, Move To Spain. I Want To Get To 21 Like EJ.
"I On The News On BBC 1. I Can't Handle 25. I Can't Handle 25, I Think I Might Die."
EJ was a reference to Errol Reynolds who was jailed for 30 years in 2007 for the murder of a gang rival.
The judge said he had read other lyrics which referred to "heating up the streets" and "upping the death toll".
Mr Justice Holroyde said: "Making every allowance for adolescent bravado, your compositions show a very disturbed attitude and mind."
The lyrics found at the house were effectively a confession to murder, said the prosecution.
Zerihun was sentenced on the basis that he was the one who fired the fateful shot, but the prosecution could not be sure whether it was him or Mathias who had pulled the trigger.
Despite claiming he had not knowingly shot Giuseppe and saying he was fearful for his life, Mathias still went into the pub and went on to commit the "gratuitous theft" of a chain from around the neck of the customer.
He also calmly looked around the premises for the intended target, Travis Bailey.
Mathias - nicknamed Mojo - went on to disappear without trace and stayed at large until he was traced to Amsterdam and arrested by Dutch police.
He was found travelling with a fake Polish identity, passing himself off as a man named Pavel who was six years older than himself.
During today's sentencing, Mathias managed to find time to construct a three-page letter to the judge which he said he had taken into account balanced against the lies he had told the court earlier.
"I have to say that on all important points I found your evidence to be simply incredible and I reject it as deliberately untrue," Mr Justice Holroyde said.
"I accept that as you have aged you have at least come to appreciate, to a degree, the enormity of what you did."
He said the victim impact statement from Giuseppe's mother, Samantha, "makes clear the dreadful feeling of loss that she and others have felt and are still feeling."
He said he would not read it out but "suffice to say the statement vividly illustrates what can be overlooked in cases like this; murder can end one life but can blight even more".
Sentencing him to a life term and rejecting the defendant's claim he had only gone to the pub to commit a robbery, Mr Justice Holroyde said: "This was a planned shooting motivated by inter-gang rivalry and a desire for vengeance."
He told him: "The waste of young lives is dreadful. In this case one teenager has been killed and you and others will spend in prison what should have been productive lives."
Mathias had earlier given evidence at Manchester Crown Court on his basis of plea in which he said he did not intend to kill anyone.
He said he did not learn of Giuseppe's death until he saw it on the news the next day.
In March 2010, Mathias's associates Njabulo Ndlovu and Hiruy Zerihun, then aged 19 and 18, were jailed for life and ordered to serve minimum terms of 21 years and 23 years respectively after they were convicted of Giuseppe's murder.
Their trial heard the pair carried out the attack in revenge for the murder of Zerihun's boyhood friend Louis Brathwaite, also 16, who was shot dead in a betting shop in Withington, south Manchester, in January 2008.
They were affiliated to Fallowfield Man Dem, a splinter group of the notorious Gooch Gang, who targeted Giuseppe and his friends because of their association to the rival gang the Longsight Crew.
Rumours were rife of the identity of the gunman who shot Louis, and the person they thought had shot their friend was sitting in front of Giuseppe in the targeted Volkswagen Golf.
The suspect, Travis Bailey, had been arrested a year after Louis's murder and was later released on bail pending further inquiries. He was eventually told in April 2009 that no further action would be taken against him.
Mathias, of no fixed address, also pleaded guilty to possessing - with Zerihun and Ndlovu - an imitation firearm, a self-loading pistol, a .32 pistol and six .32 bullet cartridges.
But today he argued the basis of his plea for murder and claimed he did not know Louis Brathwaite.
Giving evidence, he said the plan was to enter the pub and "rob the tills".
Shortly before the VW Golf arrived and someone shouted 'Boy Dem' - slang to describe that gang members were around, he said.
"I was in fear of my own life," he said.
"Some gang members were travelling towards me with the lights on and I heard bangs.
"I did not hear where the bangs were coming from. That is when I started shooting.
"It all happened so fast."
He denied being a gang member and being steeped in that lifestyle.
Stephen Riordan QC, prosecuting, said Mathias was "lying" in a bid to play down his involvement and intention that night.
Following sentencing, Giuseppe's mother added: "Two and a half years ago I had a wonderful son, Giuseppe, and my mother a loving grandson. Giuseppe was 16 years old when he died.
"Today this boy, Moses Mathias, has been convicted of his murder. I call him a boy because that is what he was. He was a 15-year-old boy when he murdered my son. Albeit a boy with a loaded gun.
"On that Sunday night in May 2009 this boy, together with his two other murderous friends, who have already been convicted, went out, armed with loaded guns, with the apparent intention of committing robbery on innocent people at a local pub disco.
"Today, the judge rejected this as a lie. When they arrived they skulked into the bushes like cowards and fired their guns indiscriminately at a car.
"In the blink of an eye they robbed my son Giuseppe of his life, his future, and our happiness and plunged my family into an everlasting life of grief.
"I would like to take this opportunity to thank Greater Manchester Police and the Crown Prosecution Service for their patience, perseverance and professionalism over the last two and a half years, which has eventually resulted in all the persons responsible for Giuseppe's murder being convicted.
"In this week leading up to Christmas I would like to ask people to take a single moment to think about all the families up and down this country who have lost a child through violent crime and for whom Christmas will never be the same.
"Giuseppe will always be my son. He will always be my entire life. He was my best friend and everything I lived for and I truly loved him."
Superintendent Paul Rumney said of the campaign to trace Mathias: "At the time, we as a force took the bold step of issuing his name and his picture because we knew we had to leave no stone unturned, no avenue unexplored, to find one of Giuseppe's killers.
"It has been a long, difficult investigation but we promised we would not rest until all of his killers were behind bars, and today we have achieved that.
"I can only hope it gives Giuseppe's family some comfort as they continue to rebuild their lives."
Giuseppe's mum Samantha said in a statement: "Two and a half years ago I had a wonderful son, Giuseppe, and my mother a loving grandson. Giuseppe was 16 years old when he died.
"Today this boy, Moses Matthias, has been convicted of his murder. I call him a boy because that is what he was. He was a 15-year-old boy when he murdered my son. Albeit a boy with a loaded gun.
"On that Sunday night in May 2009 this boy, together with his two other murderous friends, who have already been convicted, went out, armed with loaded guns, with the apparent intention of committing robbery on innocent people at a local pub disco. Today the judge rejected this as a lie. When they arrived they skulked into the bushes like cowards and fired their guns indiscriminately at a car.
"In the blink of an eye they robbed my son Giuseppe of his life, his future, and our happiness and plunged my family into an everlasting life of grief.
"I would like to take this opportunity to thank Greater Manchester Police and the Crown Prosecution Service for their patience, perseverance and professionalism over the last two and half years, which has eventually resulted in all the persons responsible for Giuseppe's murder being convicted.
"In this week leading up to Christmas I would like to ask people to take a single moment to think about all the families up and down this country who have lost a child through violent crime and for whom Christmas will never be the same.
"Giuseppe will always be my son. He will always be my entire life. He was my best friend and everything I lived for and I truly loved him."
Superintendent Paul Rumney said: "It has been more than two years since Giuseppe was murdered and his family left with a void they will never be able to fill. He was a schoolboy with his whole life ahead of him
"That night, Mathias and his accomplices had no qualms about firing guns indiscriminately into that car. He did not care who he hurt, and had no regard for the consequences that ultimately left Giuseppe's family completely devastated.
"I am delighted that finally, after more than two years on the run, Mathias has been caught and is now behind bars, particularly for Giuseppe's family who for all that time have had to live with the knowledge that Mathias was out there, evading punishment for what he had done.
"At the time, we as a Force took the bold step of issuing his name and his picture because we knew we had to leave no stone unturned, no avenue unexplored, to find one of Giuseppe's killers. It has been a long, difficult investigation but we promised we would not rest until all of his killers were behind bars, and today we have achieved that.
"I can only hope it gives Giuseppe's family some comfort as they continue to rebuild their lives."