MELILLA, Spain Aug 29 (AFP) - Fear for his situation in strife-torn Iraq pushed "Mohamed X", one time follower of deposed president Saddam Hussein, to leave his homeland and join a train of refugees in this north African Spanish enclave seeking a new future.
The 34-year-old telecoms engineer, who was a member of Saddam's Baath party until the dictator fell from power following last year's US-led invasion, fled his home city of Mosul in northern Iraq on April 10 last year.
Now he is knocking, as yet unsuccessfully, on Europe's door as a would-be immigrant to mainland Spain, joining thousands of others bent on the same strategy.
The fugitive Iraqi explains that the now disgraced Pentagon favourite and prominent politician Ahmed Chalabi was, at the time he left his homeland behind, "eliminating everyone in the Baath party.
"I could stay no longer," says Mohamed X in broken English.
Asked if he had worked for the Iraqi armed forces or indeed for Saddam's security services he smiles.
"My mother and my family have stayed over there. I must not put them in danger."
He began his exile in Syria, where he was arrested within four months.
"I spent ten months in police custody. One evening I broke my handcuffs and just ran," he recalls.
Turkey was the next port of call, from where he took a boat to Algeria before moving on to Morocco. From there, it was a short hop to Melilla, the Spanish enclave on the north African coast, the next best thing to Europe itself.
Now he is the only Iraqi among some 300 clandestine immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, Algeria and Bangladesh, all of them camped out in a slum which backs onto a temporary camp housing hundreds of other like-minded would-be immigrants.
His fellows are grouped by nationality in cardboard 'barracks' but Mohamed X has no roof and is on his own.
"At night I sleep there," he says, pointing to a rectangular collection of cardboard boxes open to the elements and which serves as a mosque.
"By day, I sit on this chair."
Mohamed X hopes he will somehow manage to obtain papers which will accord him the status of a political refugee.
As to where he finally ends up he has a few thoughts.
"Maybe France, Germany. The Netherlands."
News from Iraq is sparse and comes from his mother over the phone.
She tells him Iraq have been strutting their stuff in the Olympic football tournament in Athens, where the team only just missed a medal.
Mohamed X smiles once more -- but ruefully.
"It's a shame. Here, there's no TV."