Sneak the f out on back country roads or by boat. Prison may very well kill you.

You don't need a passport to leave a country. You need a passport to get into a country.

People who enter a country illegally and then claim asylum status are unlikely to be in any position to keep their business running.

How hard is it to get a fake-passport and sneak through the airport?

Irrelevant.

Even if it were easy as a pie, OP is worried about being convicted of a 'crime' which is not considered a crime in most of the developed world. So, he has a chance of being granted asylum.

Faking a passport, however, IS a very serious crime and it would be something ridiculously stupid to do.

Assuming you have the original, non-biometric passport, access to materials and suitable printers, plotters etc and a handful of other passports of the appropriate nationality people don't mind being "recycled", quite a while.

Very. And the consequences from getting caught are bad.

Very hard.

You could go to the USA, Canada, or EU country embassy and see if they can help you with asylum etc.

I would recommend Canada.