The government scientist, who was found dead in a field with a slit wrist near his home on Friday, also said he was put “through the wringer” during meetings with Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials and spoke of “many dark actors playing games”.

The disclosures, made in an interview and e-mails, came as cabinet ministers privately admitted yesterday that the affair marked the biggest political crisis of Tony Blair’s premiership.

In what is believed to be his last interview before he died, Kelly told The Sunday Times he had been telephoned by the MoD warning him that he would be identified the following day. “I am shocked,” he said. “I was told the whole thing would be confidential.”

His sense of betrayal was palpable and he felt profoundly let down by the MoD. Kelly’s name was published in newspapers days after a letter naming him was sent by Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, to Gavyn Davies, chairman of the BBC.

Speaking shortly before he gave evidence to a parliamentary committee, Kelly said he was convinced he was the intelligence source quoted by the BBC in its now controversial report on evidence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction broadcast on May 22. “It is pretty obvious I was the source,” he said.

In comments, some of which he asked to be off the record, Kelly said he was feeling the strain of weeks of pressure as the row intensified over the identity of the BBC’s source.

“It has been a difficult time, as you can imagine,” he said. He said “for the record”, he had not been reprimanded or pressured by the MoD, which “had been quite good about it”. But there are suggestions that Kelly feared he might lose his pension or even his job if he did not co-operate.

Last week Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, challenged the BBC to rule the scientist out as the source, saying: “Hopefully, that would allow Dr Kelly to carry on with his career in the MoD.”

Several weeks earlier an MoD source said there was a determination to identify the BBC’s mole and name him in an attempt to force an apology from the corporation.

Police confirmed yesterday that the cause of Kelly’s death was bleeding from a wound on his left wrist. A knife and painkiller tablets were found near his body.

There was speculation in Westminster that the affair would lead to the departure of Alastair Campbell, the prime minister’s director of strategy and communications. Campbell told friends this weekend that he felt “sick” when he heard of Kelly’s death. He is expected to leave Downing Street this year, but will stay until the judicial inquiry — under Lord Hutton — is completed.

There is growing evidence Kelly felt caught in the battle being waged by the MoD, No 10 and the BBC over the government’s justification for going to war with Iraq. In an e-mail sent to an American journalist on the day he died, Kelly referred to “many dark actors playing games”. The e-mail was written hours before he told his wife he was going for a walk on Thursday.

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