"The Lyon headquarters of Interpol today sent us a notice about the arrest warrant and we immediately informed the German authorities that under the Constitution and the Penal Code, we cannot extradite our citizen nor can we prosecute him until the case is transferred to our judiciary," the spokesman for the Interior Ministry told Hina on Wednesday.
Zlatko Mehun added that it was now up to the German authorities to decide on the next step.
Mehun also said that there were no legal grounds for the Croatian police to interview Perkovic.
The German police suspect that Perkovic, who was a senior official of the Yugoslav secret services until 1991, and one of his colleagues, in 1977 tried to talk a Croat living in Germany into killing two Croatian political emigrants.
The German authorities have also offered a reward of 5,000 euros for any information leading to Perkovic's apprehension.
During the investigation into the 1983 murder of Stjepan Djurekovic, a former director of the INA oil company and writer, and the 1989 murder of a political emigrant, Anto Djapic, the German police arrested Croatian citizen Krunoslav Prates in July this year.
The Office of the Croatian State Prosecutor on Wednesday could not say whether Croatian prosecutors have already contacted their German colleagues who are investigating Perkovic's alleged role in the killing of Djurekovic. It declined to comment on a report in Wednesday's issue of the Slobodna Dalmacija daily which reads that the statute of limitations for Djurekovic's murder expired two years ago and that Perkovic could no longer be prosecuted for that crime.
Anto Nobilo, a lawyer who will represent Perkovic if Croatia launches a probe against him, declined to confirm claims from the newspaper article.