No evidence Aimee Betro was paid for her role in assassination plot

Independent

21 hours ago

With a physique a witness described as 'small and fat' and wearing a summer dress and flip-flops, Aimee Betro looked more like a relaxed tourist heading for the beach than a determined assassin.
Standing at just 5ft 5ins, Betro's appearance was so unassuming that a taxi driver unwittingly ferried her away from the scene of a shooting, despite hearing three gunshots shortly after she got out of his cab and walked into a nearby cul-de-sac.
During her evidence to jurors, the 45-year-old mostly stuck with short answers, and passed herself off as someone who had obeyed instructions from her lover to buy a 'burner' phone without having any knowledge of a plot to kill.
Addressing the court in the same accent and monotone pattern of speech as she used in two calls to taxi firms which police recovered as evidence, Betro claimed she was of medium build and the would-be assassin caught on CCTV was of slim appearance.
Almost laughably, she also claimed that 'another American woman', who had a similar voice and footwear, knew Nazir, and had booked taxis to her hotel using a phone she had bought, was the female wearing a niqab whose gun jammed in Measham Grove, Yardley, Birmingham, on September 7 2019.
Jurors at Birmingham Crown Court deliberated for almost 21 hours over five days before finding Betro guilty of conspiracy to murder, possessing a self-loading pistol and a charge of fraudulently evading the prohibition on importing ammunition.
The childhood development and graphic design graduate, who denied all the charges, flew into Britain to take part in a plot orchestrated by co-conspirators Mohammed Nabil Nazir, 31, and Mohammed Aslam, 56, to shoot dead Aslat Mahumad following an altercation in a shop.
Betro, from West Allis in Wisconsin, was caught on CCTV at the scene of a failed attempt to shoot Mr Aslam's son, Sikander Ali, and during a return visit to the same street at which she fired three aimed shots through two front windows.
Evidence also showed that Betro contacted Mr Mahumad on September 6 after he advertised a car for sale, but he declined to meet her and offered to have someone else show her the vehicle.
Father and son Aslam and Nazir, both from Derby, were jailed last year for their part in the failed assassination plot.
Recounting how she had feelings for and was in love with Nazir, who she said she had slept with at an Airbnb in London during one of two previous trips to the UK, Betro claimed she had flown into Manchester from Atlanta on August 22 2019 to celebrate her birthday.
But she instead found time to hire a car to take part in a £12,000 'crash-for-cash' scam involving Nazir before the attempted murder of Mr Ali.
After trying to kill Mr Ali on September 7, Betro returned to the US on September 9, with Nazir following on a Manchester-Atlanta-Chicago flight on September 13, giving immigration officials Betro's Wisconsin address as his point of contact.
'He was going to stay at hotels but he used my address,' Betro told her trial. 'I was excited about seeing him.'
According to Betro's account, the pair rented a car and drove to Seattle 'just for a road trip' with stops at an amusement park, Area 51 in Nevada and in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Betro told jurors she did not even know there had been a shooting in Measham Grove and Nazir had not mentioned it during his time in the States, which ended in mid-October when he flew with Norwegian Air back to Gatwick and was arrested.
Detective Chief Inspector Alastair Orencas, of West Midlands Police, commenting on the inquiry, said the vehicle-related insurance scam showed 'the pure depth of criminality and lack of respect for the normal rules of society' of Betro and her co-conspirators.
Asked if he believed Betro was paid or had acted out of loyalty to her partner Nazir, the officer said: 'We've not seen evidence of payments.
'They met on a dating site, whether this is a partner doing something for another partner, again, there's no clear evidence of that. I see it as a criminal association and a murderous plot.'
There was no evidence that Betro had any previous experience with firearms from either the US or Armenian authorities, although she did hit the windows upstairs and downstairs during her return to Measham Grove.
The weapon she used is likely to have been a semi-automatic 9mm pistol, which experts say are not particularly difficult to use.
Mr Orencas said of Betro: 'I would describe her as a criminal with murderous intent, with an absolute disregard for the safety of people.
'She clearly attempted to murder on the sixth. That didn't work out because of the lack of the meeting. She tried to do it again on the seventh.
'She goaded (the intended victim through text messages) after that. She then went and discharged (the pistol) into a house where people may well have been hit while sleeping.
'She's a criminal, with murderous intent, as are the other people that have been convicted in this.'