Mr Slobodan Milosevic began his second day behind bars in The Hague today after being delivered to the war crimes tribunal in a move that won Yugoslavia pledges of aid from grateful Western powers but kindled a crisis in Belgrade.
The United Nations' chief war crimes prosecutor said the handover meant others who did Mr Milosevic's bidding in a decade of Balkans conflict and ethnic cleansing could be brought to trial.
Delighted Western officials, meeting in Brussels yesterday, pledged $777 million in aid to help end Yugoslavs' economic misery and rebuild a country shattered by NATO's 1999 bombing campaign.
But the surrender by the Serbian state government of Mr Milosevic effectively brought down the Yugoslav federal government.
Mr Zoran Zizic, prime minister of the rump federation of Serbia with Montenegro, resigned in protest at the way Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic had Mr Milosevic plucked without warning from Belgrade Central prison and handed over to UN officials.
They flew him to The Hague before the night was out.
The first head of state to be indicted for war crimes while in office, Mr Milosevic was given three days by the UN tribunal to prepare for a first court appearance on Tuesday morning.
"What, already?" a police source quoted him as asking when told in Belgrade prison on Thursday that he was being handed over. He calmly packed his slippers, but told a Hague prosecutor on the spot: "I don't recognize your court."
A medical examination in Scheveningen prison found he had no health problems. Unlike 38 other indicted war criminals held there, he was to be held apart from other inmates for the first 10 days, officials said.
If convicted on the four charges, including three of crimes against humanity in the Serbian province of Kosovo, the 59-year-old fallen strongman faces a maximum of life in jail.
Prosecutors said they were still considering further charges relating to wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Chief prosecutor Ms Carla Del Ponte said they could still charge him with the ultimate crime at the tribunal - genocide.
Having Milosevic was a "turning point" that could lead to more arrests, Ms Del Ponte said. "Nobody is above the law and beyond the reach of justice."