Mr Slobodan Milosevic yesterday rejected any legal counsel for his first appearance before the UN war crimes tribunal, signalling that he planned to attack the legitimacy of the court itself.
A tribunal spokesman, Mr Christian Chartier, said the former Yugoslavian president did not wish to be represented by any lawyer at the opening hearing, set for 10 a.m. today.
He said Mr Milosevic could change his mind if he wanted to before the start of the hearing.
Mr Milosevic met Mr Zdenko Tomanovic, a lawyer, yesterday - his first visit since his sudden extradition to The Hague last week - in what the tribunal's legal affairs chief, Mr Christian Rohde, described as a meeting between friends.
Mr Milosevic "had a personal conversation with a lawyer, but as a friend," Mr Rohde said. "He may choose to represent himself at the initial appearance. The court will not force a lawyer upon him."
Mr Milosevic, who will become the first former head of state to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and faces a life behind bars if convicted, has in the past described the tribunal as the legal arm of NATO.
He will be formally charged today, and be given 30 days to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty, over his role in the crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo that prompted a 78-day NATO bombing campaign that drove his forces out of the Serbian province of Kosovo in June 1999.
The former president has accused the tribunal of bias against Serbs and has accused NATO of mounting "an illegal and criminal war" in Kosovo, considered by Serbs as the cradle of their civilisation.
He also faces future indictments over atrocities committed in Croatia and Bosnia, where he has admitted to having financed Serbs fighting Croats and Muslims in Europe's bloodiest conflicts since the second World War.
With Mr Milosevic rejecting a lawyer, all indications on the eve of the hearing pointed to him preparing a political rather than a legal defence before the ICTY.
Mr Milosevic's rejection of the tribunal's authority raises the possibility of a refusal to enter a plea, which would lead to an automatic not-guilty plea once the 30-day period elapses, paving the way for a trial to proceed, according to tribunal rules.
Meanwhile, up to 15,000 supporters of Mr Milosevic marched through central Belgrade yesterday in protest against his extradition to the UN war crimes court.
Carrying flags of Mr Milosevic's Socialist Party (SPS) and the ultra-nationalist Radical Party (SRS), the protesters marched through one of the capital's main streets calling for the authorities who sent him to The Hague court to themselves be tried.
They blew whistles and chanted "Betrayal" as they filed through the city to the central Square of the Republic.