By M10News Crime Desk|12 August 2025
An American woman who flew across the Atlantic to assassinate a Birmingham shopkeeper at point-blank range has been convicted of conspiracy to murder after a gun jam saved her intended victim’s life.
Jurors at Birmingham Crown Court found 45-year-old Aimee Betro guilty of travelling from Wisconsin as part of a violent revenge plot orchestrated by two men embroiled in a bitter family feud.
Prosecutors told the court Betro arrived in the UK in September 2019 with the sole purpose of killing Sikander Ali outside his home in Yardley. She disguised herself in a niqab and lay in wait for nearly an hour before confronting him with a loaded firearm.
The attack failed when the weapon jammed, allowing Mr Ali to leap back into his car and speed away, clipping the assailant’s vehicle in the process. CCTV of the incident was shown to the jury.
Investigators said the murder plot had been directed by Mohammed Nabil Nazir, 31, and his father Mohammed Aslam, 56, who held a long-standing grudge against Mr Ali’s family.
That feud dated back to a violent confrontation in July 2018 at a clothing boutique owned by Mr Ali’s father, Aslat Mahumad, during which both Nazir and Aslam were injured. Prosecutors said the pair later conspired to have a member of the family killed.
The court heard Betro had previously visited the UK twice after meeting Nazir on a dating app.
She claimed her third trip, arriving via Manchester Airport from Atlanta just two weeks before the attempted shooting, was for her birthday and a boat party in London.
But on the night of 7 September 2019, she was caught on CCTV loitering outside Mr Ali’s home for 45 minutes.
Following the failed gun attack, Betro taunted Mr Mahumad by text message, writing: “Where are you hiding?”, “Stop playing hide and seek, you are lucky it jammed,” and daring him to meet her at a nearby Asda supermarket.
In the early hours of the next morning, she returned to the property and fired three rounds into the empty house before fleeing the scene.
The following day, she boarded a flight back to the United States.
Prosecutors said she went on to take part in another of Nazir’s revenge schemes, this time involving the smuggling of ammunition.
On 16 October 2019, Betro posted three parcels from a location 100 miles from her home address, using a false name. Each package contained ammunition or gun parts wrapped in foil and paper, addressed to a man in Derby.
Police later determined that Nazir had tipped off officers to the packages in an attempt to frame the recipient. The man was arrested but released without charge after his innocence was established.
Forensic tests linked Betro’s DNA to all three parcels. Prosecutors said she had been filmed by CCTV inside the post office on the day they were sent.
Betro insisted she was not the woman in the footage, claiming it must have been “another American” who looked, dressed and sounded like her.
She was extradited from Armenia in January this year to face trial, after Nazir and Aslam were jailed in November 2024 for 32 years and 10 years respectively for their roles in the conspiracy.
Jurors deliberated for nearly 21 hours before returning majority guilty verdicts for conspiracy to murder and possessing a self-loading pistol with intent to cause fear of violence.
She was unanimously convicted of a further charge of illegally importing ammunition.
Detective Chief Inspector Alastair Orencas, from West Midlands Police’s Major Crime Unit, described the attempted killing as “brazen” and “poorly concealed”.
“I think she fell foul of a really slick, dynamic law enforcement operation over here,” he said. “Zero tolerance around firearms, criminality on these shores.”
Hannah Sidaway, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Only Betro knows what truly motivated her or what she sought to gain from travelling hundreds of miles to execute an attack on a man she did not know.”
Betro has been remanded in custody and will be sentenced on 21 August.
M10News Crime Desk | Contact: crime@m10news.com
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