Following a stroke last week, Ali Hekmati, father of Arizona-born Amir Hekmati, was admitted to a Michigan hospital where doctors discovered “a hemorrhage in his brain that appears to be the result of an underlying mass,” according to a letter written by Hekmati’s neurosurgeon and provided to ABC News.
Hekmati’s family said the elder Hekmati had surgery for the tumor last Wednesday and the family is still awaiting the results of post-surgery tests. As he was recovering in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, Ali Hekmati told ABC News by phone late Friday that he was terrified he would never see his son again.
“I was praying that I would live to get to see my son,” he said in a slightly sluggish voice. “But with the grace of God, I survived. It is imperative that I get to see my son. I might even die.”
Addressing the Iranian government, Ali Hekmati said, “Send him home to comfort me, to comfort his mother.”
Amir Hekmati, a dual national, was arrested in Iran in August 2011 after he traveled to there to visit his two grandmothers, his family said. In December, Hekmati appeared on an Iranian television program where he “confessed” to being a spy sent by the CIA to infiltrate Iranian intelligence.
The State Department said flatly that claims Hekmati “either worked for, or was sent to Iran by the CIA are simply untrue.”
In an interview days after Amir Hekmati’s “confession,” Ali Hekmati told ABC News the allegations against his son were “a bunch of lies.”
Iran sentenced Amir Hekmati to death in January, only to order a retrial two months later. A family member told ABC News that they haven’t been able to contact Hekmati since his mother was allowed a short visit in mid-February and said that recently there’s been “no progress” on the case.