SOUTHFIELD, Mich. – The family of a former Marine imprisoned on espionage charges in Iran was using Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York to address U.N. General Assembly to renew their pleas for his release.

The family of Amir Hekmati, who was arrested while visiting his grandmothers in Iran in August 2011, held a news conference with the Council for Islamic-American Relations in suburban Detroit in which they appealed to Iran to release Hekmati on humanitarian grounds. Hekmati's father was diagnosed last week with an inoperable brain tumor, and the family asked that the 29-year-old be allowed to return home to be with his father.

"We ask for mercy. We ask for diplomacy. We ask for humanity," said Hekmati's brother-in-law, Ramy Kurdi. He said he hopes Ahmadinejad raises her brother's case on returning home "so the wise leaders there can make a decision and let him come home."