Mr Slobodan Milosevic, spending a third day in UN custody at The Hague, will meet his Yugoslav defence lawyers today as he prepares to confront his accusers at the international war crimes tribunal for the first time.
In Belgrade, the reformists who overthrew him in October tried to defuse a crisis caused by their stealthy handover of Mr Milosevic to the tribunal on Thursday. The Serbian Prime Minister, Mr Zoran Djindjic, admitted yesterday the police resorted to decoys and ruses to avoid the army stepping in to thwart them.
Mr Milosevic was expected to plead not guilty when he appears in court tomorrow to hear his indictment for crimes against humanity over ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The former Yugoslav president refuses to recognise the court's legitimacy. "Milosevic considers all charges against him to be political and he does not feel guilty of any of them," a source close to the defence team said in Belgrade.
Mr Milosevic, both of whose parents committed suicide and who has reportedly suffered from depression and high blood pressure, is being kept under surveillance. His death in custody would be a serious blow to stability in Yugoslavia.
In Belgrade, Mr Djindjic told the New York Times he had been afraid the army, which answers to the Yugoslav President, Mr Vojislav Kostunica, would try to stop the police handing him over to the UN. Three vans left Belgrade prison in different directions.
"We did not know what would be the reactions of the army," the prime minister said.
Mr Kostunica wanted Mr Milosevic tried at home on the corruption charges for which he was jailed in April.
"No one knew which car had Milosevic," Mr Djindjic said. A police van, seen in pictures around the world, was a decoy.
Mr Djindjic played down the crisis the handover has caused. He told another newspaper the benefits, including $1.28 billion in Western aid pledges, outweighed the disadvantages.
"The positive effects are great - it is an end to an agony. The negative ones are really minor," he told Vecernje Novosti.
But he also said reform might be needed to save the rump Yugoslav federation, in which only Montenegro remains tied to Serbia after the secession of four other republics during a decade of nationalist warfare in the Milosevic era.
Friday's collapse of the federal coalition, as Montenegro's Socialist People's Party (SNP) quit in protest at Mr Milosevic's transfer, has put the future of the federation in jeopardy.
"The federation is in deep crisis. We need to come up with a concept for change in the constitution," Mr Djindjic told German television. Otherwise there could be a "peaceful separation".
Tribunal spokesman, Mr Jim Landale, said yesterday Mr Milosevic, who is being held in isolation from the 38 other inmates, had had no visitors since arriving.
Though his wife, Ms Mirjana Markovic, is barred from entering the Netherlands under an EU travel ban, the tribunal does allow detainees to receive conjugal visits. Belgrade daily Glas Javnosti said yesterday that Ms Markovic was looking for an apartment in The Hague in the hope of getting a Dutch visa.
Lawyers say the 59-year-old former president, jailed in Belgrade on corruption charges, wants the same legal team which has been working for him at home to carry on in The Hague.
The tribunal indicted Mr Milosevic in May, 1999, over mass killings and ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo. He will be the first head of state tried for crimes committed in office and the trial will be a test for new ideas on international justice.
Tomorrow's arraignment hearing is likely to be brief.
Mr Milosevic will be brought to the tribunal building, three km away, to hear the four charges and, if he wishes, the full indictment. British presiding Judge Richard May will ask him how he pleads, guilty or not guilty. He is unlikely to appear again for months. A trial could last years.