Former Yugoslav-era Croatian secret police officials Josip Perkovic and Zdravko Mustac have filed a lawsuit against Germany at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, alleging that a German court did not give them a fair trial for their involvement in the 1983 murder of a Croatian dissident Stjepan Djurekovic in Germany.

Perkovic and Mustac – both former senior officials in the Yugoslav secret service – were handed a life sentence in 2016 by a Munich court for helping organise the murder of Djurekovic.

A former executive at the Croatian state oil company Ina, Djurekovic had defected to West Germany in 1982, before being murdered in July 1983 in Wolfratshausen, a town some 30 kilometres south of Munich. In a separate trial, another Croatian emigrant, Krunoslav Prates, was found guilty for accessory to the murder and received a life sentence in 2008.

Prates had testified he had maintained contacts with Perkovic, who was at the time a senior Yugoslav secret service official charged with monitoring activities of emigrant Croatian groups abroad.

Following much legal wrangling Perkovic and Mustac were extradited to Germany in early 2014, and were convicted in 2016.

Perkovic (73) and Mustac (76) then filed appeals to higher courts, but the last of the these was dismissed in May this year.

They also claim that although they should have already been transferred back to Croatia to serve their sentences, Germany has not forwarded any documents to Croatia regarding their case, after their transfer was made conditional on their serving their sentence in Croatia.

Perkovic’s attorney Anto Nobilo told state news agency Hina that he was told by a German judge in charge of the enforcement of sentences that the German Justice Ministry had been instructed to transfer Perkovic and Mustac to Croatia to serve their sentences.

“We have a document to that effect, but no one is acting on it. I have written to the German Justice Ministry to expedite the matter, but I have not received any reply yet,” said Nobilo.

Once the requested documents arrive in Croatia, the Zagreb County Court will align the sentence with Croatian laws, which means that Perkovic and Mustac should receive the highest sentence under the law that is most favourable for them, and such a law dates back to the time of the murder for which they were convicted.

Even though the highest sentence at the time was 20 years’ imprisonment, it was delivered exclusively to replace the death penalty so a sentence of not more than 15 years’ imprisonment can be delivered for murder, said Nobilo.

He said that despite the German court’s verdict and life sentence, Perkovic should be released on January 20, 2028, in 15 years’ time, and that he did not expect a Croatian court to be any harsher.

Attorneys representing Perkovic and Mustac, who have been warning from the beginning of the trial that their clients’ rights have been violated, said they expect a possible re-trial in Germany, if the European Court of Human Rights rules that their right to a fair trial had been violated.

Mustac’s attorney Lidija Horvat said that the recently filed lawsuit was received by the Strasbourg court and that she expected it to pass the first triage.

She added that it would be known in a few months’ time if the lawsuit would be rejected, and that if it was accepted, a first-instance ruling would be known two years from now at the earliest.

The defence base their main argument in the fact that the same judges who tried Perkovic and Mustac had previously tried Krunoslav Prates, accessory to murder, who was sentenced to life in prison for the crime, receiving the same sentence later delivered in the case against Perkovic and Mustac.

They added that the presiding judge Manfred Dauster did not give a statement about his involvement in the previous case, even though he was obliged to do so under German law, and that he was biased during the trial, favouring witnesses called in by the prosecutors, and having an aggressive attitude towards the witnesses called in by their defence.

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