The judges found that the 27-year-old, smuggled mainly Syrians from the Turkish city of Izmir to Greece five separate times
He and a 34-year-old accomplice, also from Aleppo, recruited the third man, 24, to steer the boat on one of these occasions.
In September 2015, the third man was steering an inflatable dinghy with at least 46 people on board towards the Greek island of Lesbos when it collided with a freighter and capsized.
Thirteen of the passengers died, including an unknown number of children.
The court sentenced the 27-year-old to four years in prison while the 24-year-old who drove the boat received a two-and-a-half-year sentence. The last defendant, who mainly managed the group's money, was given a two-year suspended sentence. Prosecutors had called for jail terms of up to 12 and a half years.
The International Organization of Migration registered a huge jump in the number of arrivals by sea that year, including 853,650 on Greek shores.
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