Gudelj is a resident and citizen of Australia.
The ministry said in a press release on Monday the extradition request was being amended given that in May Australia returned by diplomatic channels an amended request from 2003, with a note reading that the Australian government had amended the extradition law.
The ministry said the extradition request was first made in 2001, in accordance with a September 1996 Croatian-Australian extradition agreement.
Following Australia's revision of its bilateral extradition agreements, the request for the extradition of Gudelj was not processed and Australia asked Croatia to amend the request. The amended request was sent to Australia in 2003, alongside all the documents pertaining to the case.
Gudelj was sentenced in absentia to 20 years' imprisonment in 1994 for the murder of Reihl-Kir, the vice president of the Osijek Municipality Executive Council, Goran Zobundzija, Osijek Municipal Assembly councillor Milan Knezevic, and the attempted murder of Tenja Local Community president Mirko Tubic.
On 1 July 1991, as a reserve police officer, Gudelj fired 30 shots at a car driving the four men to Tenja for negotiations on the normalisation of relations with rebel Serbs.
Gudelj was arrested by the German police in 1996 on an Interpol warrant and extradited to Croatia, where the Supreme Court overturned the conviction and returned the case to the County Court in the eastern city of Osijek.
In May 1997, the Supreme Court discontinued the prosecution of Gudelj, pardoning him after assessing that the events had been directly linked to the war situation, namely that Gudelj had committed the murders as a reserve police officer guarding a police checkpoint near Osijek.
A month later, Reihl-Kir's wife lodged a constitutional complaint and the state prosecutor a request to overturn the pardon.
In March 2001, the Constitutional Court approved Jadranka Reihl-Kir's complaint and quashed the Supreme Court ruling which had pardoned Gudelj. The case was returned to the Osijek County Court for a retrial and a request for his extradition was sent to Australia.