{"id":361971,"date":"2025-08-21T12:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T12:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/361971\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T12:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T12:02:11","slug":"us-woman-jailed-for-30-years-for-attempted-murder-of-birmingham-man-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/361971\/","title":{"rendered":"US woman jailed for 30 years for attempted murder of Birmingham man | UK news"},"content":{"rendered":"

An American \u201chitwoman\u201d who attempted to murder a business owner before going on the run in Armenia has been jailed for 30 years at Birmingham<\/a> crown court.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Aimee Betro, 45, from Wisconsin was found guilty of conspiracy to murder<\/a>, possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and an offence relating to the importation of ammunition into the UK, after a three-week trial.<\/p>\n

During the murder attempt, Betro had disguised herself by dressing in a niqab, a face covering worn by some Muslim women, to hide her identity as she tried to shoot dead Sikander Ali outside his east Birmingham home in September 2019.<\/p>\n

She fired the gun at point-blank range as her victim arrived home in his car to the cul-de-sac where he lived in South Yardley, but the weapon jammed or malfunctioned, and he managed to speed away unharmed.<\/p>\n

Betro then returned hours later and fired three bullets through the bedroom windows of the family home, but again, no one was hurt.<\/p>\n

Betro\u2019s murder attempt was part of a revenge plot arranged by father and son Mohammed Aslam and Mohammed Nazir from Derbyshire, after a long-running dispute the men had with Ali\u2019s father, Aslat Mahumad.<\/p>\n

In July 2018, Nazir and Aslam were injured during disorder at Mahumad\u2019s clothing boutique in Birmingham, which led them to conspire to have someone kill him or a member of his family.<\/p>\n

In November 2024 the pair, who had denied any wrongdoing, were convicted after a trial. Nazir was sentenced to 32 years for offences including conspiracy to murder, while his father, Aslam, was sentenced to 10 years.<\/p>\n

Betro was recruited by her long-distance boyfriend Nazir, who she had met online on a dating app, and flew to the UK in August 2019 to carry out the planned killing in Birmingham the next month.<\/p>\n

Telephone evidence recovered by West Midlands police revealed Betro had visited Nazir in Derby in September 2019. Video footage on his mobile phone showed a gun being test-fired on wasteland near the A38; the weapon jammed during filming, as happened during the murder attempt three days later.<\/p>\n

Betro texted a message to the father of the man she had tried to kill, saying: \u201cStop playing hide n seek. You\u2019re lucky it jammed. Who is it? Your family or you? Pick one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hours after her failed murder attempt, Betro fled the country, first to the US, and then to Armenia, from where she was eventually extradited to face trial.<\/p>\n

In a separate foiled plot, Betro sent illegal ammunition from the US to a man in Derbyshire, another rival of Nazir\u2019s, so that he would be arrested.<\/p>\n

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Betro showed no emotion as Judge Simon Drew KC sentenced her to 30 years in prison, with concurrent sentences of six years for possessing a firearm and two years for fraudulently evading the prohibition on importing ammunition.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cYou 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\u2019t killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were engaged in a complex, well planned conspiracy to murder. You were prepared to pull the trigger and did so on two separate occasions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far as you are concerned, clearly you had a leading role. I accept that Nazir recruited you, but you were the gunwoman,\u201d the judge added. \u201cYou were the person who was prepared to fire the gun, as a result you showed that you were willing to carry out the killing yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing Betro, Drew said: \u201cSo far as mitigation is concerned, I take into account your antecedent history, your age, the fact that you will serve some or all of your sentence in a UK prison, far away from home, and the contents of your letter in which you express remorse for your actions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An American \u201chitwoman\u201d who attempted to murder a business owner before going on the run in Armenia has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-361971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115066656834373778","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}