Man used sub-machine gun in horrific drive-by shooting

A MAN wearing an electronic tag carried out a ‘horrific’ drive-by shooting with a sub-machine gun in broad daylight, a court heard.

Usman Khan and an accomplice are alleged to have committed the attempted ‘execution’ of a man as he sat in a Volkswagen Golf on Shaw Hill Road in Alum Rock on April 30 last year.

A jury at Birmingham Crown Court heard the two men, the latter of whom remains at large, abandoned the stolen Toyota CHR used to carry out the attack before they walked to a Seat Leon where alleged ‘getaway driver’ Amaan Ajaz was waiting to help them escape.

Khan, aged 22, formerly of Sladefield Road, Alum Rock, and Ajaz, of Mead Crescent, Little Bromwich, deny attempted murder.

Khan has also pleaded not guilty to an offence of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life while Ajaz has denied a charge of assisting an offender. Prosecutor Annabel Darlow KC stated the Golf had been ‘surreptitiously’ fitted with a tracking device by the attackers but she added the true motive for the shooting is not known.

The man who was shot, who may not have even been the intended target, survived and managed to drive to Heartlands Hospital where he was treated for several gunshot wounds and a casing fell out of his leg.

Ms Darlow told the court: “On April 30 last year a man was shot in a drive-by shooting in Shaw Hill Road, in Alum Rock. The shots were fired from a sub-machine gun while he sat in a parked vehicle outside the address of a friend.”

She said the Toyota had been stolen from an address in Wolverhampton earlier that month by two males in balaclavas. The car had been fitted with false plates, one of which contained Ajaz’s fingerprint on the back, the jury was told.

Ms Darlow alleged that after the shooting Khan and the other man ‘abandoned the Toyota in a residential estate in Maybank, Bordesley

Green before walking to Ajaz’s car’. The jury was told Khan and the other man flew to Pakistan on May 10, only for Khan to be arrested at Birmingham Airport on his return sometime later while his alleged accomplice is believe to be living overseas. The court heard Khan had been on an electronic tag and was subject to 7pm to 7am curfew for an ‘unrelated matter’ at the time of the shooting which helped establish his movements on the day.

(Proceeding)