Man jailed after shots were fired and a car rammed after Aston Villa Champions League match
A man has been jailed after shots were fired at a group of men who were fleeing from a car when it was rammed in Birmingham.
The violence unfolded as fans were leaving the busy Aston area after Villa’s Champions League fixture against Bayern Munich on October 2 last year.
The incident involved three men in a black VW Golf being driven along Trinity Road towards Birchfield Road at around 10.40pm when it was deliberately struck by a Mitsubishi Shogun. The three men in the Golf fled on foot towards Birchfield Road.
Kasim Ali, aged 24, of The Broadway, Handsworth, was among four men who then alighted the Shogun.
He used the handle of a Rambo type knife to smash the Golf’s windscreen, while another man fired a gun at the victims as they fled on foot up Trinity Road.
The bullet ricocheted off the Golf’s swinging car door, missing the victims. The man then fires again into the victim’s now empty car.
Ali fled the country shortly after the shooting, but forensic tests linked him to the scene and he was arrested when he returned to the UK.
On Tuesday at Birmingham Crown Court he admitted possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and was subsequently jailed for eight years and four months.
West Midlands Police said the motive for the attack remained unknown and inquiries were continuing to identify the three other men from the Shogun including the person who actually fired the gun.
Ali’s conviction is part of the force's Operation Target initiative set up to tackle serious and organised crime.
