North Korean defector braves hitmen and missiles to tell the truth about crackpot Kim Jong Un’s brutal regime
Park Sang-hak now dedicates his life to bringing down the brutal country which brainwashed him and millions of others
A BRAVE North Korean defector working to spread the truth about Kim Jong Un's brutal regime has quickly become the crazed dictator's public enemy number one.
The tin pot tyrant has even launched missiles and sent hitmen armed with poison pens and' torch-guns' to kill plucky Park Sang-hak.
His only 'crime' is trying to tell the rest of the world the truth about what life is really like in the secretive and oppressive country.
Five years ago, he even survived an assassination attempt by an agent armed with two poison-tipped pens and a torch that fired bullets.
The would-be killer asked to meet, but South Korean police went in his place and caught the would-be killer.
Not surprisingly, Park now has permanent bodyguards.
Park spent 25 years living in North Korea and admits when he was younger he had no wish to leave his then beloved homeland.
Then he received a message from his father who was working in Japan for the government.
His father had learned the family were in danger and wanted them to leave.
“This was the moment my dreams crashed,” Park told the. “I was sad and scared, but I knew I had no choice.”
As entire families are held culpable for offences, he revealed, “If I stayed, I would be sent to a prison camp, since my father was not coming back.”
His father had discovered the horrific scale of famine in his homeland and feared fresh purges.
Huge numbers had starved to death due to the loss of financial aid after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
A week later, Park bribed a border guard to defect across the Yalu river to China with his mother, brother and sister.
Today - working from South Korea - he dedicates his life to bringing down the brutal regime that brainwashed him and 25 million fellow citizens.
Park quit his job on learning his fiancee had been beaten so badly following his escape that she was left unrecognisable.
His two uncles had been tortured to death and his teenage cousins were reduced to begging on the street.
“I had to do something,” he said. “I was mad that these innocent people had been tortured and killed.”
Park's payback is to send fact-filled flyers in hot air balloons to North Korea.
This year, he has dispatched TWO MILLION leaflets attacking the dictatorship in home-made balloons sent across the barbed-wire border.
The leaflets are sent in packages alongside dollars, declarations of human rights, booklets about South Korea, sweets and soap operas.
Missiles have been fired back over the border in response to his balloon launches, and at times of high tension South Korea has deployed the police to stop his balloon launches.