Jury retires in trial of US woman accused of taking part in murder conspiracy

Jurors trying a US citizen accused of involvement in a “revenge” murder plot in the UK have retired to consider their verdicts.

Aimee Betro, who has been on trial at Birmingham Crown Court, denies conspiracy to murder, possessing a self-loading pistol and a charge of fraudulently evading the prohibition on importing ammunition.

Prosecutors allege Betro, who is originally from West Allis in Wisconsin but was living in Armenia until earlier this year, flew to Britain in August 2019 to take part in a plot orchestrated by co-conspirators Mohammed Aslam, 56, and his son Mohammed Nabil Nazir, 31, to attack a family they had been feuding with.

The Crown also claim the 45-year-old graduate hid her face using a niqab when she got out of a Mercedes and tried to shoot Sikander Ali at point-blank range outside his home in Measham Grove, Yardley, Birmingham.

The attempted shooting took place shortly after 8pm on September 7 2019, the trial heard, but the handgun jammed, allowing Mr Ali to flee in his car.

Betro is also alleged to have returned to Measham Grove in a taxi around five hours later and to have fired three rounds at the windows of the intended victim’s property.

The prosecution said “revenge was the motive” after Nazir and Aslam, of Elms Avenue in Derby, were injured during disorder at Mr Ali’s father Aslat 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.

Giving evidence during her trial, Betro suggested that the perpetrator was “another American woman” who sounded similar to her, used the same phone and wore the same sort of trainers.

Betro also told jurors that it was “all just a terrible coincidence” that she was around the corner from the scene of the attempted assassination six minutes later.

She also maintained that a woman described as having an American accent and being small and fat, who bought a vehicle linked to the plot, was not her and claimed she had “no reason or motive” to carry out the shooting and did not know the intended victim’s family.

Betro told the jury she flew to Britain to celebrate her birthday and attend a boat party, having met Nazir on a dating app and having previously travelled to the UK to meet him.

Jurors started their deliberations in the case on Wednesday after Judge Simon Drew KC finished summing up the evidence heard during the trial.