Josip Perković

Josip Perković (; born 17 May 1945) is a former director of the Yugoslav-era Croatian secret police, the State Security Service (Služba državne sigurnosti, SDS), convicted in 2016 in Germany to life in prison for his involvement in the 1983 assassination of Croat émigré Stjepan Đureković.

Career Perković was born in Ličko Novo Selo near Našice in eastern Croatia. After earning a university degree in economics, he started working for a local SDS office in Osijek in January 1970. In September 1979 he was transferred to Zagreb and put in charge of the department dealing with Croatian émigrés abroad. Prates was charged with accessory to murder of Đureković, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment by a Munich court in July 2008.

As the Croatian Constitution prevents extradition of Croatian citizens to other countries, Perković continued to live freely in Croatia even after the 2009 arrest warrant, as it had been issued by Germany. However, the warrant was to become legally binding for Croatian authorities in 2013, as the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) issued by Germany for Perković came into force with Croatia's accession to the European Union on 1 July 2013, allowing extradition of wanted individuals to fellow EU states.

The Croatian Parliament passed an amendment to Croatia's extradition law just days before formal EU accession, including a provision which prevented extradition for crimes committed before 2002, when new EU extradition rules came into effect, thus omitting the 1983 murder of Đureković in which Perković was implicated.

The abrupt passing of the amendment imposing time limit on European Arrest Warrants caused a diplomatic dispute with Germany, with the Croatian government saying at the time it wanted to protect war veterans of the 1991–95 Croatian War of Independence from facing potential arrests and prosecution elsewhere in the EU.

The government later lifted the time restriction in August 2014, only after the European Commission warned that the amended law was in violation of Croatia's EU accession treaty and that it could face legal action, including the loss of EU development funds.

Another former intelligence chief, Zdravko Mustač, was also extradited to Germany over alleged involvement in the Đureković murder, and the trial for both of them started at a Munich court on 17 October 2014. They both denied the charges.

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