An American woman who disguised herself in a niqab to shoot her British lover's feud rival has been found guilty of conspiracy to murder.
Aimee Betro, from Wisconsin, flew to the UK as part of a revenge plot orchestrated by Mohammed Nabil Nazir and his father, Mohammed Aslam. Betro, 45, tried to assassinate Sikander Ali at point-blank range outside his family home in Birmingham – but her gun jammed, allowing him to escape.
Following the "botched" attack, in 2019, Betro spent five years on the run, said CNN. After a hunt that "spanned continents and involved multiple crime agencies", including the FBI, she was arrested last summer in Armenia, extradited for trial in the UK and convicted on Tuesday at Birmingham Crown Court.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Latest Videos From
Feud between families
The prosecution said the attack was "the culmination of a feud between two families" in the Midlands, said The New York Times. It began in 2018, with a "fistfight" in the clothing boutique owned by Ali's father, Aslat Mahumad. The court heard that both Nazir and Aslam were left injured, and with a desire to "exact revenge" on Mahumad and his family. But "the assassin they chose was far from local".
Betro said she and Nazir, 31, had met on a dating app and begun a relationship online. She said she had travelled to the UK twice before to spend time with him but, this time, she was only in Britain to celebrate her birthday and attend a boat party.
When Sikander Ali arrived at his family home, in "a quiet cul-de-sac" in the suburbs of Birmingham, on the evening of 7 September 2019, he did not notice a woman with her face covered, parked in a Mercedes. "As he began to open his car door, the veiled woman walked toward him, raised a handgun and pulled the trigger." After the gun jammed, Ali "scrambled back into his vehicle, threw it into reverse and sped off".
"It is sheer luck that he managed to get away unscathed," said Hannah Sidaway from Crown Prosecution Service West Midlands.
Betro abandoned her car nearby but returned a few hours later in a taxi, and fired three shots into the now-empty home. The court heard that Betro had sent Ali's father text messages, saying: "Stop playing hide and seek; you are lucky it jammed."
She then fled the UK, and was joined in the US by Nazir. From there, the pair "orchestrated another plot" that, according to West Midlands Police, involved sending illegal ammunition "to a man in Derby, England, in the hopes he would be arrested", said CNN.
'Implausible' story
Betro claimed someone else carried out the shooting, that she had "no reason or motive" to do so, and that she did not know the intended victim's family, said ITV News. It was "all just a terrible coincidence", she told the court, and another "small and fat" American woman, who wore the same trainers, was responsible.
But the jury saw through "her implausible account", said The Times. Betro had flown to Britain with "a clear brief: kill Mahumad and his family".
Detective Chief Inspector Alastair Orencas, from West Midlands Police, described it as "a carefully planned murderous plot".
Aslam and Nazir were both convicted last November for their part in the murder plot. Aslam, 56, was sentenced to 10 years and Nazir to 32 years, both for conspiracy to murder.
After 21 hours of deliberation, jurors at Birmingham Crown Court found Betro guilty on charges of conspiracy to murder, possessing a gun with intent to cause fear of violence, and illegally importing ammunition. When the near-unanimous verdicts were read out, Betro "did not react and merely stared towards the jury bench", said The Guardian. "She remained emotionless when escorted back to her cell."
Betro is due to be sentenced on 21 August.
