A US woman disguised in a niqab who tried to shoot a man dead outside his Birmingham home before fleeing the country and spending five years on the run has been found guilty of conspiracy to murder.
Aimee Betro, 45, tried to shoot her target from just feet away outside his home in a cul-de-sac in South Yardley on September 8, 2019 but her gun jammed.
Today after a trial at Birmingham Crown Court lasting two weeks, Betro was found guilty of conspiracy to murder, possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, and an offence relating to the importation of ammunition into the UK.
CCTV footage showed how the victim had just returned home and was getting out of his car, but sped away as she approached him with the gun, smashing the open door from Betro's car.
A few hours later, she returned and fired three bullets through bedroom windows of the family home.
She was disguised in a niqab, according to the Guardian.
Two men, Derbyshire father and son Mohammed Aslam and Mohammed Nazir, were jailed for their role in the murder plot last year.
They had been involved in a feud with the father of the man who Betro tried to shoot, who also lived at the house which she shot at.
He was owner of a clothes shop in Birmingham where, in 2018, a disorder resulted in damage to the premises, and injuries to himself, Aslam and Nazir.
Betro fled the country the day after she'd fired the shots at the house, and a major operation with international law enforcement agencies to track her down began.
Meanwhile, detectives built up a picture of her time in the UK, and how she had flown into Manchester Airport on August 22, 2019, just over two weeks before the shooting.
A major CCTV trawl and analysis of mobile phone data showed Betro's movements in the build-up and aftermath of the attempted shooting late on September 7, and the subsequent shooting in the early hours of September 8.
"She met up with Nazir, who she had met online some time earlier and who at some point had recruited her to carry out the attack," said a police spokesperson.
"We found a video on his phone of a gun, believed to be the one used in the shooting, being test fired in Derby, days before the shooting. Betro had travelled to Derby on the same day the footage was filmed.
CCTV revealed how Betro had bought cheap burner phones in Birmingham which she used to plot her attack.
She was finally tracked down to Armenia, more than 3200km away from Birmingham, and was returned to the UK in January to await trial.
'Unique' case - police
Detective Inspector Alastair Orencas of the major crime unit, said this was "a unique case which has involved a huge amount of work tracing the movements of Betro from her arrival into the UK, her subsequent failed attempt to shoot a man dead, and her departure from the UK".
"It's by luck that her attempt to kill her target failed, thanks to the jamming of her gun."
Specialist Prosecutor Hannah Sidaway OBE, from the Crown Prosecution Service in the West Midlands, said the prosecution was "a culmination of years of hard work doggedly pursuing Aimee Betro across countries and borders while she remained relentless in her bid to escape justice".
"Only Betro knows what truly motivated her or what she sought to gain from becoming embroiled in a crime that meant she travelled hundreds of miles from Wisconsin to Birmingham to execute an attack on a man she did not know. The jury clearly agreed this was a planned hit which failed."
She will be sentenced on August 21.
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