Former Yugoslav and Croatian intelligence official Josip Perkovic (74) was transferred to Zagreb's Remetinec Prison on Thursday after Germany handed him over to the Croatian authorities so that he could serve his prison term for the 1983 murder of political emigrant Stjepan Djurekovic.

Perkovic arrived in Zagreb on a regular flight from Munich and was admitted to prison at 2.50pm.

Justice Minister Drazen Bosnjakovic said earlier in the day that Perkovic would spend some time at the prison’s diagnostics centre after which it would be decided in which prison he would serve the remainder of his sentence.

Perkovic and his one-time superior Zdravko Mustac (77) were handed over to Germany early in 2014 on the condition that after the trial they served their sentences in Croatia.

In August 2015, the Supreme Court in Munich sentenced them to life imprisonment for their roles in the murder of Croatian dissident Stjepan Djurekovic in Wolfratshausen, outside Munich, in July 1983. Djurekovic was killed by as yet unidentified perpetrators.

On May 14 this year, the Croatian Supreme Court dismissed Perkovic’s appeal and upheld the Zagreb County Court ruling of December 2018 that translated the German sentence of life imprisonment into a 30-year prison term, which Perkovic is to serve in Croatia under Croatian regulations.

Mustac is still in custody in Germany. The County Court in Velika Gorica has converted his sentence into a 40-year prison term.

Following the sentence handed down by the German court, both Perkovic and Mustac have turned to the European Court of Human Rights.

Perkovic’s lawyer Anto Nobilo said on Thursday he hoped the court in Strasbourg would rule in his client’s favour and that he would be released from prison in a year or two.