Pakistani national Muhammad Pahlawan was sentenced to 40 years in a US prison on Thursday after he was found guilty by a Virginia court of using a fishing boat to transport ballistic missile components from Iran the the Houthi terror group in Yemen.
Pahlawan, 49, was detained in the Arabian Sea in January 2024 by US forces in an operation which saw two US Navy Seals drowned.
Pahlawan’s crew told the courts that they had been tricked into participating in the smuggling scheme after the Pakistani national allegedly had them believe they were working as fishermen.
A previous court hearing saw Pahlawan convicted on five counts - including terrorism offenses and transporting weapons of mass destruction. The sentencing amounts to 40 years imprisonment.
The missile components found on Pahlawan's boat were "some of the most sophisticated weapon systems that Iran proliferates to other terrorist groups," US federal prosecutors said after his trial, according to BBC News.
Pahlawan is thought to have made two earlier successful smuggling journeys, the first of which was in October 2023, shortly after Hamas invaded southern Israel and murdered more than 1200 people. The Houthi attacks on Israel and international shipping began soon after the massacre as the Yemen group claimed to be acting in solidarity with the Gazan terrorists.
Crew testimonies
Eight members of Pahlawan’s crew told the court they had been unaware that the large packages aboard the Yunus had been missile components. One crew member said that the Pakistani national had told him to mind his business when he questioned the contents of the boxes.
The men recruited by Pahlawan had crossed into Iran from Pakistan to search for work.
When US naval forces stopped the shipment, crew member Aslam Hyder testified in court that Pahlawan had said, “Don't tell them that I am the [captain], because I can do serious damage to you guys if you do that'."
"He started to threaten us… It was about the family and the children, that they will not know about you and you won't know what happened to them," he said. "Then we got very scared and we became quiet."
In text messages seen by the court, Pahlawan told his wife days before he was detained that he was a “walking dead person” and was anticipating an arrest.
For the journey from Iran to Yemen, Pahlawan was paid 1,400 million rials.
The trip was "part of a larger operation" funded and co-ordinated by two Iranian brothers, Yunus and Shahab Mir'kazei, the US War Department announced in June. Both men are wanted by the US government.