Jiri Dienstbier | Czech leader, 73

Jiri Dienstbier, 73, the reporter turned dissident who joined Václav Havel to help topple one of Eastern Europe's most repressive regimes - and then served under Havel in Czechoslovakia's first postcommunist government - died Saturday. News of his death was announced by Czech public television and by his assistant, who said Mr. Dienstbier died in a Prague hospital. They did not specify the cause of death.

"A friend of mine for many years has died," Havel said in a farewell statement. "We experienced so much together."

Mr. Dienstbier secured his place in history for his prominent role in the dissident movement led by Havel that agitated for observance of human rights during the dying years of communist power in Eastern Europe.

But before that, he was an eminent radio journalist in Czechoslovakia, the predecessor state to the present-day nations the Czech Republic and Slovakia - and afterward, with Havel as president, he played key government roles of foreign minister and one of the country's deputy prime ministers.

Photos of him and his German counterpart, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, symbolically cutting the barbed wire that separated Czechoslovakia and Germany during the Cold War, went around the world.

As a visiting professor of foreign relations and politics, he lectured at a number of universities worldwide, including Claremont Graduate School in California, the University of North Carolina, Brown University, and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Mr. Dienstbier returned to Czech politics in 2008, when he became a lawmaker in the Czech Senate. His term was to expire in 2014. - AP