LONDON: An arms smuggler from Pakistan who used a fishing boat to ship ballistic missile parts from Iran to Houthi rebels in Yemen has been sentenced to 40 years in prison in the US on five charges.
Muhammad Pahlawan was detained during a US military operation in the Arabian Sea in January 2024. Two US Navy Seals drowned in that operation, according to US authorities.
Pahlawan’s crew, who worked as fishermen, testified according to the US case that they had been tricked into participating and were unaware of the real plot. At the time, the Houthis had launched missile and drone strikes against Israel, claiming they were acting in support of Gazans.
The components found on Pahlawan’s boat were “some of the most sophisticated weapons systems that Iran is spreading to other terrorist groups”, US federal prosecutors said after his trial.
The 49-year-old was convicted after being convicted of five counts, including terrorist offenses and transporting weapons of mass destruction. He has been sentenced on five counts, which equates to a total of 480 months or 40 years.
The eight crew members who testified in court said they had no idea what was inside the large packages aboard the boat, called the Yunus.
A crew member said that when he asked Pahlawan about it, he was told to mind his own business.
Pahlawan referred to himself as a “walking dead person” in text message exchanges with his wife in Pakistan, sent in the days before the January 2024 trip that would see him arrested.
“Just ask for it [we] come back safe,” read the message, used as evidence in court.
“Why are you talking like this, ‘may or may not come back,'” she asked him.
Pahlawan told her, “That’s the nature of the job, my dear, that’s the nature of the job.”
His last words to her before sailing were, “Keep me in your prayers. May God take me there safely and bring me back safely, okay. Pray.”
Prosecutors told the court that Pahlawan was paid 1,400 million rials (£25,200; $33,274), “part of a larger operation” financed and coordinated by two Iranian brothers, Yunus and Shahab Mir’kazei. The United States claims that the Mir’kazei brothers are affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Pahlawan made two successful smuggling trips before he was caught – one in October 2023 and another two months later.
The dozen men he recruited to join him were all from Pakistan and had traveled across the border into Iran looking for work.
Before setting off on the December voyage, the US court heard, the crew were tasked with loading large packages onto the boat in Chabahar on Iran’s southern coast.
Then, after five or six days at sea, when they were close to the coast of Somalia, the crew described that another boat pulled up alongside them during the night and that they had to deliver the cargo.
Crew member Mehandi Hassan told the court that there were about five men on the other boat who spoke in a language he did not recognise.
Their next voyage, the following month, was expected to follow the same route. As before, it began in the small port of Konarak, before sailing to Chabahar, where the crew had to load heavy boxes on board.
The packages, which the US Navy later discovered, contained Iranian-made ballistic missile parts, anti-ship cruise missile components and a warhead.
He worked with the brothers to prepare the boat for these smuggling trips, received specific coordinates from them for ship-to-ship transfers, and received several payments from them for his role in the smuggling operation.
US federal prosecutors said the components found on Pahlawan’s boat were “some of the most sophisticated weapons systems that Iran is spreading to other terrorist groups”.
On June 5 this year, Pahlawan was found guilty of conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorists; providing material support to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ weapons of mass destruction program; conspire to and transport explosive devices to the Houthis, knowing that these explosives would be used to cause harm; and threatened his crew.
“Pahlawan was not only an experienced smuggler,” prosecutors said, “he knew what he was smuggling and its intended use.”
In a final plea to the court for immunity, Pahlawan’s lawyer wrote that the life of Pahlawan’s wife had long been estranged from her family because of her marriage to him, and that her and her child’s life had become “extremely difficult and harsh” since his arrest.
“Since the jury’s verdict, Mr. Pahlawan’s singular focus in their telephone conversations has been the welfare of his family,” his lawyer said. “He doesn’t talk about himself or his fate. He cries out of concern for what will become of his wife and child.”
The court ruled that his high sentence was “appropriate given the nature and circumstances of the offense and the defendant’s history and characteristics”.
He was sentenced in the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
