By April, when his statue was toppled in Baghdad, symbolic of a change in tide, Saddam was already far away from his capital.

On December 13, Saddam was captured from an underground hole near Tikrit. As the US triumphantly announced that they 'got him', the dishevelled man whose pictures they released looked a far cry from the proud dictator who had once terrorised a nation.

His trial began in July 2004 and was a turbulent one, with Saddam often storming out of court and refusing to bow down to any authority.

Image: (Inset) A US Marine pulls down a poster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Safwan, Iraq. (Right) An explosion in Baghdad on March 20, 2003, as the US invaded Iraq