A burka-clad "hitwoman" flew from the US to try to shoot dead a Birmingham shopkeeper, a court has heard.
US citizen Aimee Betro is accused of flying to the Second City in order to carry out a "revenge shooting" with two co-conspirators after a long-running feud.
Birmingham Crown Court was told how the American disguised herself after being hired to shoot a shopkeeper who was in a "violent" feud - however, the gun jammed.
Tom Walkling KC, prosecuting, said: "The assassin was a woman who tried to disguise her appearance by wearing a niqab - a face covering - and what looked like a burka."
WEST MIDLANDS POLICE
|Birmingham Crown Court was told how the American disguised herself after being hired to shoot a shopkeeper
Aimee Betro denies the accusation of conspiring to murder shop worker Sikander Ali in South Yardley, east Birmingham, on September 7, 2019.
The court was also told that Betro allegedly flew in from Wisconsin in order to take part in a plot orchestrated by father and son co-conspirators Mohammed Aslam, 59, and Mohammed Nabil Nazir, 31.
The plot allegedly aimed to target a rival family in a culmination of a long-running "vendetta" involving Aslat Mahamud and his family.
Walkling suggested "revenge was the motive” behind the attack, after Nazir and Aslam were injured during disorder at Mahumad's clothes shop in July that year.
WEST MIDLANDS POLICE
|Father and son Aslam (left) and Nazir, from Derby, were convicted of conspiracy to murder and jailed in November last year
According to the prosecution, Betro bought a Mercedes earlier that day and waited outside Mahumad's family's home in Measham Grove.
Nearly an hour later, CCTV caught the moment the "would-be assassin" approached Sikander Ali, Mahumad's son, when he arrived home.
Betro allegedly then fired the gun at point-blank range.
But on Monday, the court was told that the gun jammed as footage of the incident was played to the jury.
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After the failed attempt, Betro went back to the property in the taxi and fired three more shots, smashing several windows, the court was told.
She is also accused of sending messages to Ali's father such as: "Where are you hiding?" "Stop playing hide and seek", and "Come and meet me".
Walkling said: "We know that Betro was in contact with Nazir well before she came to the UK in August 2019.
"We have found evidence from her telephone that she was in contact with Nazir as early as December 2018."
He added: "It clearly led Nazir and Aslam to conspire to have someone kill Aslat Muhamad, or a member of his family, by way of revenge."
The jury was told Betro returned to the US soon after the incident, and was arrested in Armenia in June last year having fled the country.
Aslam and Nazir, who live in Derby, were convicted of conspiracy to murder and jailed in November last year.