Alan Gross and his wife, Judy. Photo: Gross family.

Alan Gross, the American-Jewish aid worker who has been imprisoned in Cuba since 2009, has pled with Cuban President Raul Castro for a two-week U.S. visit to see his sick mother.

Gross’s mother has terminal lung cancer and “her final wish is to be able to see her son once more before her battle with cancer is lost,” wrote Peter J. Kahn, U.S. counsel to Gross, in a letter to the Cuban president. Gross’s daughter also has cancer and Gross himself, 62, is reportedly suffering from several health issues in the Cuban prison.

Gross was arrested in 2009 in Cuba while he was working to install Internet access for Cuba’s small Jewish communities, and was sentenced to 15 years on espionage charges. Castro has told a visiting delegation of U.S. Senators that Alan was “no spy,” a press release reported but has still not released him.