Black Country drug dealer locked up for 15 years after 'accidental' shooting
Adam Liaqat was involved in the S drugs line, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.
A drug dealer who was present when his partner in crime was accidentally shot while they were arranging to attack someone has been locked up for 15 years.
Asad Khan, then aged 22, and Adam Liaqat, then aged 19, both of West Bromwich, were parked up in St Paul’s Road, Smethwick, just before 4.30am on November 23 last year and planning a shooting when their own gun went off, Wolverhampton Crown Court previously heard.
Khan, of Lones Road, sustained serious leg injuries and went to hospital, leading police to launch an investigation.
The officers discovered that the red Mitsubishi the pair were sitting in at the time of the incident had been stolen from Newhall Road, Rowley Regis the previous evening.
Khan was subsequently arrested at a later date and his mobile phone seized and checked.
Officers then discovered a message between him and someone else which indicated he and Liaqat were on their way to conduct a shooting before their own mishap occurred.
Liaqat was arrested in December, 2025 following a pursuit involving a silver Honda Accord.
On that occasion his passenger was Yakuba Sawaneh, aged 20, of Perry Common, Birmingham. Class A drugs and a burner phone were thrown from the windows during the police chase which came to an end in Oldbury.
On Monday (November 2), Liaqat was sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown Court on four counts of possessing class A drugs with intent to supply, possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life and vehicle taking.
He was found guilty of the charges following a trial in May.
Mr Graham Russell, prosecuting at the sentencing hearing, said the charges reflected Liaqat’s involvement in the S drugs line.
He said Liaqat appeared to have been associated with the S line from May 2024, and when he was arrested in October 2024 he had keys to the drug line’s safe house in Smethwick on his person.
When police entered that property substantial quantities of class A drugs were in the process of being weighed out on a dining room table and they also found weapons and disguises.
Mr Russell said he later had a ‘middle management’ role in the drug line’s operation.
He told the court the prosecution offered no evidence on a charge of unlawful wounding against Liaqat, and he would have to be sentenced on the basis that the gun being discharged was an ‘involuntary and unforeseeable accident’.
The court also heard that the jury had not been able to decide if the gun had been discharged by Liaqat.
Liaqat, now 20, of Middlemore Road, West Bromwich, also had a previous caution for having a bladed article on a school premises in 2018.
Mr Rag Chand, mitigating, said Liaqat told him if he could turn back time he would, adding that he was ‘really sorry’, and that he wanted to get a job and ‘lead a more positive life’ when he came out of prison.
He also said Liaqat had come from a ‘difficult background’ and left school without any qualifications.
Sentencing him, Judge Robert Talog-Davies said on the earlier drug charges, from October 2024, Liaqat had acted as a ‘foot soldier’ in the operation, however his role went beyond street dealing as he had keys to a property where drugs, weapons and disguises were found.
Speaking about the later drugs charges, the judge told him: “By 2 December 2025 you were on bail for counts one and two, by then the evidence was that you had moved up the chain and stepped into the shoes of some of your former associates who were by then in custody.
“You kept the S line operating, albeit you were now as a driver. Whilst you had gone up in the world, so to speak, it was middle management rather than anything more senior.”
He sentenced Liaqat to a total of 15 years detention and he will have to serve up to half of that time in custody, minus time on remand, before being released on licence.
He was also disqualified from driving for eight-and-a-half years, and there will be a proceeds of crime hearing at a later date.
In September, Khan and Sawaneh were sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown Court for their misdemeanours.
Following a trial in May at Wolverhampton Crown Court Khan, 23, was found guilty of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life and possession of class A drugs. Sawaneh was found guilty of possession of class A drugs with intent to supply.
The judge jailed Khan, for a total of 13 years, and sentenced Sawaneh to youth detention for three-and-a-half-years.