'Saddam was betrayed'

"The once feared despot broke his silence in an interview with The Sun from his cell," the tabloid title said, adding that Saddam was speaking through his lawyer, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

Clark told the paper that before Saddam was cornered by US troops in a cramped underground hideout near his hometown Tikrit on December 13, 2003, he had been "moving every day to a different location, organising the insurgents".

When captured, the former Iraqi leader had been about to flee the scene by motorbike, the paper said.

"I came out of the house where I was hiding by this hole. I went through the trap door. I went through the hole, through the tunnel then lost consciousness," Saddam said, adding: "I believe I was betrayed. I have been set up."