SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Kim Seong-Min, a prominent North Korean defector who used radio broadcasts, USB sticks and a network of sources in the secretive country to inform the North Korean public about the truth of their authoritarian government, has died. He was 63.

The founder of the Seoul-based Free North Korea Radio was pronounced dead at a Seoul hospital on Friday, years after fighting a lung cancer which recently spread to his liver, his former colleagues said. They said Kim was cremated and his remains were placed at a columbarium near the border with North Korea,

“We, North Korean defectors, lost one of our leaders. We aren’t sure if we’ll have such a leader again. He was truly our hope,” said Choi Jung-hoon, a defector who worked with Kim for seven years.

Kim, a former North K

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