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Convicted Yugoslav Intelligence Chiefs Sue Germany

November 13, 201817:02
Former Yugoslav State Security Service officials Josip Perkovic and Zdravko Mustac have filed a suit against Germany at the European Court of Human Rights, alleging the trial that saw them convicted of murder was unfair.

This post is also available in this language: Shqip Macedonian Bos/Hrv/Srp

Zdravko Mustac (right) and Josip Perkovic in court in Munich in October 2014. Photo: EPA/PETER KNEFFEL.

Josip Perkovic and Zdravko Mustac have filed a lawsuit against Germany at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, claiming that a German court did not treat them fairly when they were tried for the 1983 murder of a Croatian dissident in Munich, media reported on Tuesday.

Their lawyers, Lidija Horvat and Ante Nobilo, told Croatian state news agency Hina that they want a retrial in Germany.

The lawyers claimed that presiding judge Manfred Dauster was biased during the trial, “responding favourably to the prosecution witnesses”, and being “extremely aggressive towards the defence witnesses”.

The lawyers also insist that the two men should have already been transferred back to Croatia to serve their sentences, but that Germany has not sent the case documents yet to enable this, Hina reported.

Perkovic, alongside his former superior Mustac, was sentenced to life in prison in August 2016 for abetting the murder of émigré Stjepan Djurekovic in 1983 in a garage in Wolfsrathausen near Munich, where he printed anti-Yugoslav propaganda material.

Mustac headed the Croatian branch of the Yugoslav State Security Service at the time, while Perkovic was chief of its department responsible for émigrés.

The extradition of Perkovic and Mustac to Germany in 2013 was a long and politically controversial process.

Both of them have appealed against their convictions, but the appeals were dismissed in May this year.

Read more:

Yugoslav Spy Chiefs Jailed for Life

Perkovic Defence Lodges Appeal Before German Court

Yugoslav Spy Saga Puts Assassinations in Spotlight

This post is also available in this language: Shqip Macedonian Bos/Hrv/Srp


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