US hitwoman Aimee Betro jailed over failed Birmingham assassination when gun jammed

A US hitwoman whose gun jammed during an assassination attempt outside a family home in the UK has been jailed for 30 years.

Aimee Betro was wearing a niqab when she tried to shoot Sikander Ali at point-blank range in Yardley, Birmingham, shortly after 8pm on September 7, 2019. She was found guilty of conspiracy to murder, possessing a self-loading pistol and fraudulently evading the prohibition on importing ammunitionafter a three-week trialwhich ended last week.

The 45-year-old, who is originally from West Allis, Wisconsin, showed no emotion at Birmingham Crown Court as Judge Simon Drew KC jailed her for 30 years, with concurrent sentences of six years for possessing a firearm and two years for evading the prohibition.

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“You went beyond simply reaching an agreement to kill and, in reality, you did intend to kill Mr Ali. It is only a matter of chance that Mr Ali wasn’t killed,” Judge Drew told Betro, who was wearing a white top, black cardigan and her hair in plaits in the dock.

Jurors heard she took part in a plot orchestrated by co-conspirators Mohammed Aslam, 56, and his son Mohammed Nabil Nazir, 31, who were sentenced for their part last year, following a feud with Mr Ali’s father, Aslat Mahumad. Nazir was jailed for 32 years in November 2024 for offences including conspiracy to murder while Aslam was sentenced to 10 years.

Prosecution counsel Tom Walkling KC said “revenge was the motive” after Nazir and Aslam were injured during disorder at Mr Mahumad’s clothing boutique in Birmingham in July 2018, which led them to conspire to have someone kill him or a member of his family.

Mr Walkling told Betro’s trial that she met Nazir, who lived in Derby, on a dating app in late 2018 and then communicated with him via Snapchat before flying to the UK on Christmas Day of the same year.

She previously told the court she slept with Nazir at an Airbnb in London before returning to the US in January 2019. Records show Betro landed at Manchester Airport on a flight from Atlanta on August 22 2019, two weeks before the attempted killing of Mr Ali.

Betro was caught on CCTV at and near the scene of the failed attempt to shoot Mr Ali, who fled in his car after the gun jammed. Security camera footage also captured her return to the scene hours later, when she aimed three shots through the front windows of Mr Ali’s family home.

Betro told the court she flew into the UK to celebrate her 40th birthday and knew nothing of any shooting or murder plot by the time she returned to the US. She also attempted to explain away evidence against her by claiming the woman caught on CCTV wielding a gun and recorded booking taxis was “another American woman” known to Nazir who had a similar voice and footwear.

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.”