Jailed Moro dissident leader, Nur Misuari, may follow legal tactics employed by former president Joseph Estrada and drop all 12 members of his defence panel altogether in a gesture of loss of confidence in the country's judicial system, his lawyer said yesterday.

"He's following the footsteps of Estrada ... He thinks he could not get justice for his case under the present administration," Misuari's attorney, Ely Pamatong, said in a TV interview yesterday.

Apart from the possibility of dropping the services of his defence counsels, Pamatong said Misuari will definitely boycott court proceedings of his rebellion trial.

"He's not attending the hearing; I've talked to him inside his cell. I'm 99.99 per cent certain of this," he said.

The justice department last week ordered the trial of Misuari over rebellion charges to start next month after workers have completed a specially-built courthouse inside the police camp where the former chairman of the once-mainstream rebel group, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), has been detained since last January.

Pamatong, one of the dozen volunteer lawyers for Misuari's rebellion case, said he would soon submit an appeal to the court to withdraw from the case, saying: "I don't believe I should defend my client in a court that will not give him justice."

Misuari is facing charges of rebellion for leading his supporters last November 19 in an uprising in his native Sulu, even though he was the governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).