Aimee Betro travelled from her home in Wisconsin to shoot businessman Aslat Mahamud. She was in a three-way conspiracy with online lover Mohammed Nazir and his dad Mohammed Aslam
A female assassin who travelled from the US to carry out a shooting outside a family home has been convicted of conspiracy to murder.
The plot failed after Aimee Betro’s gun jammed when she pulled the trigger metres away from the intended victim. The 45-year-old was disguised in a niqab when she carried out the attempted hit in September 2019. She returned to the house, in a quiet Birmingham cul-de-sac, hours later and fired three shots into two bedroom windows.
Betro was in a three-way conspiracy with Mohammed Nazir and his dad Mohammed Aslam. Birmingham crown court heard the two men wanted to murder clothing store owner Aslat Mahamud after a dispute. They were involved in a “vendetta” and decided to carry out a killing as “revenge” for an earlier incident.
Betro and Nazir had met on an internet dating site and she was said to be “besotted” with him. She told jurors she slept with the 31-year-old when she previously visited the UK. Detectives found no evidence that she was paid for the attempted assassination.
The American flew from the US to Manchester two weeks before the hit. She then bought a “dirty” burner phone from Tesco two days before the shooting in South Yardley. The following day she rang Mr Mahamud saying she was interested in buying a car he was selling.
“She was calling him as a pretext to set up a chance to kill him,” prosecutor Tim Walkling KC told jurors during the trial. Betro sat waiting for 45 minutes in a Mercedes outside Mr Mahamud’s home dressed in a niqab and burkha. She then tried to shoot his son Sikander Ali when he arrived at the property.
“The assassin was a woman who disguised her appearance by wearing a niqab, a face covering, and what looked like a burkha,” said Mr Walkling. “She had waited for someone to go into that house. When they did she pulled out a gun, a pistol, and pulled the trigger. She was only metres away from the intended victim. But the gun jammed, it failed to fire.”
Mr Ali jumped back into his car and sped away from the scene after surviving the hit, which was captured in dramatic CCTV footage. Betro later texted his dad asking “where are you hiding?” and saying “stop playing hide and seek, you’re lucky it jammed”.
She then went back to the family’s home and opened fire, shooting three bullets into a bedroom window while wearing flip-flops. A black glove with the American’s DNA on it was found inside the abandoned Mercedes.
Betro left the UK two days after the botched hit and was joined in the US by her lover Nazir. He was arrested when he flew back to Britain in mid-October. Betro remained on the run but was eventually arrested in a village in Armenia in July last year. She denied any involvement in the attack, saying she was in the UK to celebrate her birthday.
Det Chief Insp Alastair Orencas, who led the investigation, said it was a “carefully planned, persistent, murderous plot”. He said only a malfunction of her pistol or a “rogue” bullet had prevented Betro from shooting Mr Ali.
The senior officer added: “It’s a brazen attempt. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of effort to avoid detection. I think she fell foul of a really slick, dynamic law enforcement operation over here. I don’t know whether that was her perspective from America that that’s how we operate – but (there is) zero tolerance around firearms criminality on these shores.”
Nazir, 30, and his 56-year-old father, both from Derby, had already been convicted conspiracy to murder. Nazir was also found guilty of possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence. He is serving a 32-year jail term, while his dad was handed a ten-year sentence.
