‘Hijab killer’ Aimee Betro unmasked amid global manhunt for US woman who botched hitjob in Birmingham

This is the face revealed of an alleged ‘assassin’ in America who wore a hijab as he botched a hitjob in Birmingham. Aimee Betro is believed to have pointed a gun at Sikander Ali outside his Acocks Green home in September 2019, only for her gun to jam at the crucial moment she pulled the trigger.

The 44-year-old from Wisconsin became the focus of media attention and the subject of an international “woman hunt” after father and son Mohammed Aslam and Mohammed Nazir were convicted of conspiracy to murder. Despite her conspicuous absence from the bench, she was heavily mentioned during the trial at Birmingham Crown Court, which ended earlier this month.

According to national reports, Betro broke her silence to friends on social media, dismissing “misinformation” about her and describing her situation as a “s**t show.” Although a friend claimed she confessed to her involvement in the attempted shooting, she disputed “some of the details.”

READ MORE: Timeline as female assassin ate Deliveroo order at Rotunda before botched hitjob

Reporters also tracked her mother down to her Wisconsin trailer park home, where she revealed that the FBI had once knocked on her door asking about her daughter. Although it was also revealed that she was fired from her job with the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team for using fans’ credit cards to finance her foreign trips and hotel stays.

A compilation of her social media videos, allegedly posted at the time of her ill-fated visit to England in August and September 2019, appears to match the evidence of her movements presented to the Birmingham trial jury. It shows her flying to Manchester to visit her ‘partner in crime’, sipping cocktails in Brighton and visiting the London Eye, as well as enjoying a boat party and music festival.

According to the Daily Mail, a friend reached out to Betro on Facebook, to which she replied: “Dude I saw like wtf I don’t even know where to start with all the misinformation being said about me,” adding “It’s crazy . does not look like’.

She is currently believed to be somewhere in Asia where she is allegedly “using her phone every day” talking to people on Snapchat and “taking pictures out of her apartment window”. The source, who was not named, further claimed that Betro admitted his involvement in the hitjob but denied “some of the details”.

It has been reported that friends who have known her for years are in disbelief about her apparent double life. One person stated that she had “never fired a gun” in her life, while Betro was also described as “the nicest person in the world”.

But her mother Jeanne Johnson, tracked down to her trailer in Stevens Point, offered a contrasting view as the estranged parent said: “I’ve been waiting for this day – either trouble or dead.”

She was said to be oblivious to her involvement in the Birmingham hitjob and was “shocked” by the trial’s revelations, saying he had not seen her for years. Ms Johnson told reporters that the FBI had previously come looking for her daughter accusing her of sending an illegal package, possibly linked to evidence that she had posted weapons components to Britain as part of of Mohammed Nazir’s separate plot to frame someone for arms smuggling.

She described Betro as a “nice girl, very intelligent, very outgoing” before adding “She’s not stupid. She knows how to hide’. The now-fugitive American citizen was mentioned at length during the Birmingham trial.

The jury was told he flew to Manchester from the United States on August 22, 2019 and spent two weeks in the UK traveling to Birmingham, Derby, London and Brighton. CCTV captured a clothed woman driving a Mercedes in Measham Grove in Acocks Green on the evening of September 7 and confronting Sikander Ali outside his home.

In a statement, the victim described pulling up in his Audi and seeing a woman in a hijab pointing a gun at him before getting back into the car and driving off in a panic. Prosecutors later told Betro his father, Aslat Mahumad — possibly the real target of the assassination attempt — saying, “Stop playing hide and seek, you’re lucky it jammed,” apparently describing her failure to fire the gun.

The trial heard that Aslam and Nazir were involved in a violent incident at Mr Mahumad’s boutique shop in Alum Rock Road, Saltley more than a year earlier in June 2018. This led to the defendant’s own address in Elms Avenue, Derby being attacked in retaliation, potentially providing the motive for the botched assassination.

The jury was presented with substantial evidence of telephone contact between Nazir and numbers attributed to Betro during his time in England in 2019. And CCTV captured him visiting the Rotunda Hotel the night before the shooting attempt.

It was also alleged that after Betro failed to kill Mr Ali, she returned to the address hours later and fired three bullets into his house, which was empty. He is believed to have flown from the UK from Manchester to Chicago via New York in 48 hours.

Nazir followed her out of the country to America a few days later. On 16 October 2019, Betro was caught on CCTV posting packages of weapons components in the United Kingdom. They were intercepted by authorities after Nazir made anonymous calls in which he tried to impersonate a former friend with whom he had been growing cannabis before an argument.

Nazir, 30, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, perverting the course of justice and fraudulently evading a ban. Aslam, 56, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder but cleared of the firearms offence. Sentencing is scheduled for August 9.

Betro remains at large.