According to an international warrant which the German Police issued for his arrest, while being a senior official of the defunct Yugoslavia's State Security Service, Perkovic was involved in the 1983 murder of Djurekovic, a former director oof the INA oil company and a writer, who was in exile in Germany after he fled the then Yugoslavia.
On behalf of the the above-mentioned centre, Goran Jurisic on Wednesday issued a press release refuting statements of another former agent of the Yugoslav State Security Service, Bozidar Spasic who recently said in Belgrade that the former Yugoslav authorities had stated that Djurekovic was engaged in terrorist activities.
The centre reiterates that Stjepan Djurekovic was a political emigrant and that he was killed due to his criticism of the Tito regime which he expressed in his books.
The centre assesses that Perkovic's son, Sasa Perkovic, who is an advisor of the current Croatian President Stjepan Mesic, may influence an investigation which can be launched against his father.
This organisation also finds it unacceptable that during the rule of the first Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, Josip Perkovic was at the helm of the (Croatian) Security and Information Service (SIS) and that the current authorities also protect a murder suspect.
The Croatian Interior Ministry on Wednesday received an Interpol warrant for the arrest of Josip Perkovic, a former agent of the defunct Yugoslavia's State Security Service whom the German police suspect of being involved in the 1983 murder of Djurekovic, Immediately upon receipt of the warrant, the Ministry informed German colleagues that it could not act on it because the Croatian Constitution prohibits the extradition of Croatian citizens to other countries.
"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.