A weapons smuggler who used a fishing boat to ship ballistic missile parts from Iran to Houthi rebels in Yemen has been sentenced to 40 years in a US prison.
Pakistani national Muhammad Pahlawan was detained during a US military operation in the Arabian Sea in January 2024 - during which two US Navy Seals drowned.
Pahlawan's crew testified they had been duped into taking part, having believed they were working as fishermen.
The Houthis had launched sustained missile and drone attacks on Israel at the time, and targeted international commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, saying they were acting in support of Gazans. Iran has consistently denied arming the Houthis.
The crew's detailed testimonies to a court in the US state of Virginia provide a rare look inside a smuggling operation that helped power the attacks.
The 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.
The 49-year-old was sentenced on Thursday, having been previously convicted on five counts - including terrorism offences and transporting weapons of mass destruction.
Court documents show the sentences for two of the five counts will run concurrently for 240 months, or 20 years. The other three counts, another 20 years, will run consecutive to that - making a total of 480 months, or 40 years.
'Walking dead person'
The eight crew members who testified in court said they had no idea what was inside the large packages on board the boat, named the Yunus.
One crew member said that when he questioned Pahlawan about it, he was told to mind his own business.
Pahlawan, however, knew just how dangerous the cargo was.
He referred to himself as a walking dead person in text message exchanges with his wife, sent in the days before the January 2024 voyage which would get him arrested.
Just pray that [we] come back safely, said the message, used as evidence in court.
Why do you talk like this, 'may or may not come back', she asked him.
Pahlawan told her: Such is the nature of the job, my dear, such is the nature of the job.
His final words to her before sailing were: Keep me in your prayers. May God take me there safely and bring me back safely, alright. Pray.
For this journey, Pahlawan was paid 1,400 million rials (£25,200; $33,274) - a substantial fee prosecutors at his trial described as danger money.
The trip was part of a larger operation funded and co-ordinated by two Iranian brothers, Yunus and Shahab Mir'kazei, said the then-US Department of Defense in a statement in June.
The Mir'kazei brothers are allegedly affiliated, it added, with Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) - the most powerful armed force in Iran. The IRGC is designated as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US.
Pahlawan made two successful smuggling voyages before he was caught - one in October 2023, and a second two months later.
The dozen men he recruited to join him were all from Pakistan and had travelled across the border into Iran looking for work.
Once at sea, Pahlawan kept to himself, according to crew testimony, often staying in his cabin and watching movies on his phone.
On 11 January, the crew said they were woken by the sound of helicopter rotors overhead and a US Navy ship pulling alongside. Pahlawan came out of his cabin to tell everyone to keep going and not to stop the boat, telling them the ship and helicopters belonged to pirates.
Both men were so laden with equipment that they quickly drowned, an internal report later found. Their bodies were never found and they were declared dead 10 days later.
The American military said the packages found on board the Yunus were the first Iranian-supplied weapons to be seized by US forces since the Houthis had started attacking vessels in the Red Sea a few months earlier.
Between 2015 and 2023, US forces and their allies seized almost 2.4 million pieces of ammunition, 365 anti-tank guided missiles, and more than 29,000 small arms and light weapons from small boats in the Arabian Sea, according to a UN report.
William Freer, from the UK think tank Council on Geostrategy, told BBC News that while most of the Houthi attacks have involved smaller weapons, the components found on Pahlawan's ship are a lot more complicated and can pack a lot more punch.
Mr Freer added that the impact on commercial shipping has continued to this day.
Iran has been accused by the US, UK, Israel and Saudi Arabia of smuggling missiles and other weapons to the Houthis by sea, in violation of a UN Security Council resolution since the armed group ousted Yemen's internationally-recognised government from much of north-western Yemen 10 years ago, sparking a devastating civil war. Iran denies this.
