Pakistani national in US sentenced to 40 years for transporting Iran-made advanced conventional weapons

New York: A Pakistani national in the US has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for charges relating to transporting Iranian-made advanced conventional weaponry.

Muhammad Pahlawan was convicted in June this year by a federal jury for conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorists, providing material support and resources to Iran’s weapons of mass destruction programme, providing material support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ weapons of mass destruction programme, and conspiring and transporting explosive devices to the Houthis, knowing those explosives would be used to cause harm and threatening his crew.

He was sentenced last month to 40 years in prison for the charges.

According to court records and evidence presented during trial, on the night of January 11, 2024, US Central Command Navy forces operating from the USS LEWIS B PULLER, including Navy SEALs and members of the US Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team East, boarded an unflagged dhow, a small vessel, in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Somalia.

The US boarding team encountered 14 individual mariners on the vessel, including Pahlawan.

During a search of the dhow, the US boarding team located and seized Iranian-made advanced conventional weaponry, including ballistic missile components, anti-ship cruise missile components, and a warhead.

The type of weaponry found aboard the dhow was consistent with the weaponry used by the Houthi rebel forces during the time of the charged conspiracy against merchant ships and US military ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden after the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, the US Justice Department said.

During the interdiction, Pahlawan lied to the boarding team, instructed other crew members to lie, and eventually threatened the lives of the crew members and their families. Two Navy SEALs -- Christopher Chambers and Nathan Gage Ingram -- lost their lives during the interdiction.

Pahlawan’s January 2024 trip was part of a larger operation. From in or around August 2023 through in or around January 2024, Pahlawan worked with two Iranian brothers, Shahab Mirkazei and Yunus Mirkazei, affiliated to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to smuggle materials from Iran to other recipients, including the Houthi rebel forces in Yemen.

Pahlawan completed multiple smuggling voyages, coordinated and funded by the two Iranian brothers, by travelling with cargo from Iran to the coast of Somalia and transporting that cargo to another vessel for a nighttime ship-to-ship transfer.

He worked with them to prepare the dhow for multiple smuggling voyages, received specific coordinates from them for the ship-to-ship transfers, and received multiple payments from them for his role in the smuggling operation.