Sana'a, Yemen - A Yemeni state security court on Saturday sentenced an Iranian man to death and 11 other Iranians as well as a Pakistani man to 25 years in jail for smuggling drugs into the Gulf state.

The court convicted the 13 men, aged between 24 and 50, of smuggling some 1,400 kilograms of hashish from Iran into Yemeni territorial waters.

The men were arrested in March and their Iranian-flagged boat was seized by Yemeni coast-guard patrols off the south-eastern province of Mahra on the Arabian Sea.

Ayoub Muhammad Houd, 50, was sentenced to death after the court condemned him for leading the group.

Houd and the other convicts appealed against the verdict immediately after presiding judge Muhssin Alwan delivered it.

Yemen's south-eastern coast is used by drug-traffickers from Iran and Pakistan as a gateway to oil-rich countries in the Gulf.

On Friday, the Interior Ministry said coast-guard patrols seized a boat carrying seven tons of hashish near the Yemeni island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean. (dpa)