A Yemeni court on Saturday sentenced to death an Iranian for drug trafficking and imposed 25 year prison sentences each on another 11 Iranians and a Pakistani, officials said. Ayub Mohammed Houd, 33, who faces the death penalty, and his 12 accomplices were found guilty of bringing 1.5 tons of hashish into Yemeni territorial waters, hidden in the hold of a ship coming from Iran. "It was the work of a gang of criminals, who turned to trading in narcotics," according to the prosecuting statement.
The prosecutor immediately entered an appeal, saying all the accused men should be condemned to death. Defense lawyers also said they would appeal the sentences. The men denied the charges and said they had nothing to do with the seized drugs.
The prosecution said the 13 men were arrested by a U.S. navy warship, which found the drugs on board their boat. They were handed over to the Yemeni authorities after the destruction of all but 20 kilograms of drugs.
At the opening of the trial on October 12, the men, whose statements in Farsi were translated into Arabic, denied the charges and said the U.S. sailors threw a large quantity of fish into the sea from the hold.
Another group of 13 Iranian fishermen are on trial in Yemen, also for drug running.
On Friday, Yemeni authorities announced the seizure of seven tons of drugs on a ship off the Yemeni island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, during an operation by coastguards in cooperation with international forces. Nine people aboard the ship were arrested, an interior ministry official told AFP on Saturday.
Yemeni authorities have said they seized 27 tons of various drugs in the first nine months of the year, mostly from Iranian traffickers wanting to distribute them via Yemen to Gulf countries.