“What I want is to intervene for humanitarian reasons, not to interfere in a court ruling,” Morsi reportedly told members of the Egyptian community in New York while he was in the U.S. for the UN General Assembly.

The Blind Sheikh was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, plotting to bomb other New York sites and plotting to assassinate former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“We want his family to be allowed to visit him and to serve his sentence in Egypt as part of a prisoner swap between Egypt and the United States,” Morsi said, according to the official MENA news agency.