Zagreb County Court received the ruling from Germany on Wednesday related to the request of former Yugoslav-era secret service officials Josip Perkovic and Zdravko Mustac to serve their life sentences handed to them by a German court in Croatia, which means they might be extradited to Croatia as early as January 2019.

The ruling of a Munich court which in 2016 sentenced Perkovic and Mustac to life in prison over their role in a 1983 murder of a Croatian dissident in Germany must now be adjusted to Croatia’s legal system before it can be applied, court spokesman Kresimir Devcic said on Wednesday.

Their attorney, Anto Nobilo, said that Perkovic (73) and Mustac (76) could be brought to Croatia in January 2019 to serve their prison sentences.

However, since there is no life imprisonment in the Croatian penile system, Nobilo said that the version of the law that had been in force at the time and was most favourable for the two convicts should be applied.

Although the maximum sentence in Yugoslavia’s system at the time was 20 years in prison, it was handed down rarely, and only as a replacement for the death penalty, so no more than 15 years can be given for an act of murder, he added.

Nobilo said that another view the court might take now is to replace German court’s life sentence with Croatia’s currently maximum prison term of 40 years, which would make them eligible for release in 20 years. But that means they would be put into a legally worse position due to their extradition, Nobilo said, as the German court said his clients could be released in January 2028.

Upon arriving in Croatia, Perkovic and Mustac will first be placed at Zagreb’s Remetinec prison, before being forwarded to another penitentiary.

This past May, the German supreme court in Karlsruhe upheld life imprisonment for Perkovic and Mustac for their roles in the assassination of Stjepan Djurekovic in July 1983 for which they were sentenced by a Munich court in 2016.

It was proved during the trial that Perkovic and Mustac, at the time senior officers of the Yugoslav secret service, had organised Djurekovic’s assassination abroad after he had emigrated to Germany in 1982.

Djurekovic, a former CEO of the Zagreb-based state-owned oil company Ina, became involved with Croatian emigre groups in Germany before getting murdered in Wolfratshausen, a small town some 30 kilometres south of Munich.

The trial chamber of the High Regional Court in Munich said in their sentencing verdict that the main motive for the murder was eliminating political opposition to the Yugoslav communist regime.

In November, Perkovic and Mustac filed their case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, alleging that the Munich court did not give them a fair trial.

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