AN Iraqi journalist who fled his home country amid fears he would be killed is living in Bolton.

Four years and eight months on from arriving in the UK after an eight-day trip in the back of a lorry, Rzhwan Amin has still not been granted refugee status by the Home Office.

Mr Amin wrote political reports for a newspaper in Kirkuk, a city both the Iraqi government and the largely independent Kurdish parliament claim ownership of, and which has one of the country's biggest oilfields on its doorstep.

He left Iraq when he says his investigative journalism put him in danger.

Mr Amin, who is now living in Church Avenue, Great Lever, says up to 3,000 journalists in Iraq have been targeted since the United States and UK invasion in 2003.

The Home Office have verified that the PUK sent Mr Amin the letter, which he says followed a story he had written about their election campaign.

They question the extent to which his life would be in danger if he returned to Iraq. The case is now set to appear before the High Court.

Mr Amin is being supported by the Manchester & Salford Branch of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), who have asked MP Lucy Powell to raise his case directly with Home Secretary Theresa May.

Mr Amin said: "It has been more than four years and I don't know how long this still might take. I simply want refugee status so I can get on with my life.

"I cannot go back home. I'm very grateful for the NUJ's support."

Mr Amin, who has no children or partner, has not seen his mother, who still lives in Kirkuk, since he fled, while his sister and brother-in-law, a school teacher and university lecturer respectively, have sought asylum in the United States.

He is now staying with a friend in Bolton but cannot work and was unable to take up a place at the University of Salford.

In 2013 he was detained for 43 days and spent seven months on bail wearing an electronic tag while officials explored the option of deporting him.

The asylum seeker entered the UK illegally in a lorry he climbed aboard in Istanbul — enduring an eight-day journey. He said: "I was in the back of the truck.

"The driver could not speak any English so we had to communicate via sign language.

"He stopped a few times to give me food and drink. It was really scary but better than staying in Iraq.

"Journalists there are not allowed to speak about the facts and the truth."

Kath Grant, secretary of the NUJ’s Manchester & Salford Branch, said: “We believe Rzhwan should be given asylum in the UK on human rights grounds. He has submitted clear and detailed evidence to the Home Office that, if he was returned to Iraq, his life would be at risk because of his previous work as a journalist.

“In refusing his case, the Home Office did not consider the extra evidence he submitted and their decision to refuse asylum is now being legally challenged. The NUJ will support Rzhwan's campaign all the way - we will not stay silent while the Home Office returns a journalist to a situation where he will almost certainly be killed."

A Home Office spokesman said: "The UK has a proud history of granting asylum to those who need our protection and we consider every claim on its individual merits.

“The recently passed Immigration Act makes it easier to remove people from the UK and harder for individuals to prolong their stay with spurious appeals, by cutting the number of appeal rights from 17 to four.”