Seventy-two-year old Kim Young-soon was once a celebrated dancer in North Korea, rubbing shoulders with the country's elite and once meeting future leader Kim Jong-il.

That all changed when authorities found out that she knew too much about his love life, putting her into a political prison for nine years where she says she was left to fight for her life.

[Kim Young-Soon, North Korean Defector]:

"I had no idea about the existence of political prisons. I thought I could go back home after finishing the investigation. I wrote everything with that hope. I never imagined the North Korean system would bring me such harsh disadvantage (because of what I had heard)."

She happened to be friends with one of North Korea's leading actresses, Sung Hye-rim, who was in a relationship with the married Kim Jong-il and with whom she had a son in 1971.

Kim Young-soon's knowledge of the secret love affair was enough to turn her into a criminal in the state's eyes, as the future leader was trying to keep the relationship from his father, Kim Il-sung, due to the sensitive issue of succession in Asia's only communist dynasty.

She only found out in 1989 why she had been thrown into prison.

[Kim Young-Soon, North Korean Defector]:

"The investigator told me that Sung Hye-rim was not Kim Jong-il's wife and didn't give birth to his son, saying they were false rumours. He told me that I will never be forgiven if I tell it to anybody or hear about it."

She eventually escaped to South Korea and now works as a dance instructor and was choreographer for a musical about the North's political prisons.