A defiant Mr Slobodan Milosevic made his second appearance before the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague yesterday, dismissing it as a "false tribunal" and saying he was subjected to "massive violation" of his rights.
Directly after the hearing, the tribunal's chief prosecutor, Ms Carla Del Ponte, hit back saying she would be adding two new indictments charging the former Yugoslav president with genocide - the most serious war crime - for his role in the Bosnian war, and with war crimes for atrocities committed in Croatia.
The court broke new ground earlier this month with its first conviction for genocide, jailing a former Bosnian Serb general, Radislav Krstic, for 46 years for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
The wars that raged in the former Yugoslav republics from 1991 until 1995 left 250,000 people dead.
Mr Milosevic currently faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the 1998-1999 Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province in Kosovo.
At the hearing, Mr Milosevic complained about his detention, saying he had been kept in "total isolation" in jail in The Hague since his transfer from Belgrade on June 28th.
He asked the court to explain "why my family cannot visit me as others have that possibility". His wife, Ms Mira Markovic, has been allowed to visit him twice in jail.
A tribunal spokesman, Mr Jim Landale, said Mr Milosevic had seen at least six lawyers. "He has had over 45 hours of visiting time with his wife, and over 20 hours from other family members," Landale said.
Mr Milosevic again refused to be represented before the tribunal, saying it was illegal. "I don't see why I have to defend myself in false tribunal for false indictment," he told the judges, speaking in English.
Presiding Judge Richard May said he would appoint a representative on Mr Milosevic's behalf, who would not defend the indictee but only assist the court in future hearings.
Spirited out of Serbia two months ago by the reformers who deposed him in October, Mr Milosevic made a defiant first tribunal appearance on July 3rd, refusing to plead and challenging the court's legitimacy. Judges were forced to enter not guilty pleas for him.
Judge Patrick Robinson said the judges felt "it is wrong to impose counsel on the accused".
"He has chosen to defend himself, he has made that abundantly clear," Judge Robinson told the prosecution.
Judge May also set a rough timetable for the trial, saying he would like to fix a date within the first two months of next year.
This date, however, would apply only to the Kosovo indictment.
A spokeswoman for Ms Del Ponte said that the chief prosecutor would sign the two new indictments on October 1st. These charges relate to Mr Milosevic's role in the war in Croatia (1991-95) and the Bosnian war (1992-95).
A judge will have to confirm the indictments after they are submitted by the prosecution. The cases are likely to be joined in a single trial for Mr Milosevic.
The next status conference in the Milosevic case - a standard pre-trial hearing to allow lawyers, judges and accused to review the progress of the case - is scheduled for October 29th, when the prosecution is expected file a motion to join the indictments.
The formal trial is not expected to begin before the autumn of 2002.
Meanwhile, an international human rights organisation protested yesterday to the UN war crimes tribunal over its decision to release the former Bosnian Serb president, Ms Biljana Plavsic, pending her trial.
"Due to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia's (ICTY) decision to release such a war criminal as Biljana Plavsic is ... the court might lose the confidence of survivors of deportations, torture, killings and rape," the Bosnian branch of the Luxembourg-based Society for Threatened Peoples said.
"We cooperate with the tribunal and thus we believe that it should make no compromises. Ms Plavsic's release was a compromise," Mr Fadila Memisevic, the head of the organisation's Bosnian branch, said.