Fears South Korean court will impose harsh penalty on Kwon Pyong to appease Beijing as trial set to begin

The father of a Chinese dissident detained in South Korea said his son will die if he is sent back to China, a country he escaped from on a jetski in a life-threatening journey in August.

A court in South Korea will decide on Thursday the fate of Kwon Pyong, who is charged with violating the immigration control act. Kwon, 35, pleaded guilty and appealed for leniency as prosecutors requested a sentence of two and a half years, which experts say is unusually harsh.

In the first public comments by Kwon’s family, his father, Quan He, told the Guardian his son was “a young person and he desires freedom. I really hope that the Korean government can give him a way to live.”

Kwon has been held in Incheon detention centre since he washed up on the Korean coastline on the night of 16 August. As a dissident who had previously been jailed in China for criticising Xi Jinping, China’s leader, his case could strain the already fraught relations between Beijing and Seoul.