Josip Perković

Josip Perković
Josip Perković in 2014
Born	(1945-05-17) 17 May 1945 (age 71) Ličko Novo Selo, Croatia
Occupation	Director, State Security Service
Criminal penalty	Life imprisonment for his role in the murder of Stjepan Đureković

Josip Perković (pronounced [jǒsip perkoʋit͡ɕ]) (born 17 May 1945) is a former director of the Yugoslav-era Croatian secret police, the State Security Service (Služba državne sigurnosti, SDS), convicted in 2016 in Germany to life in prison for his involvement in the 1983 assassination of Croat émigré Stjepan Đureković.

Perković was born in Ličko Novo Selo near Našice in eastern Croatia. After earning a university degree in economy, he started working for a local SDS office in Osijek in January 1970. In September 1979 he was transferred to Zagreb and put in charge of the department dealing with Croatian émigrés abroad. Perković continued to rise through the SDS ranks and was appointed assistant to the interior minister of Socialist Republic of Croatia in 1986, becoming head of the entire Croatian branch of SDS.

Following the 1990 multiparty election, Perković continued working at the Croatian Interior Ministry, and was named undersecretary for state security in April 1990. In 1991 he was transferred to the Defence Ministry, upon explicit request by Gojko Šušak, himself a former émigré who had returned from Canada and who was at the time Minister of Emigration in the Cabinet of Franjo Gregurić.

In 1992 Perković was abruptly relieved of his duty, after a film implicating him in the 1978 murder of Bruno Bušić in Paris was aired on national television. However, he was soon rehabilitated by Šušak (who in the meantime became Minister of Defence) who appointed him as his advisor at the defence ministry. In 1996 he was transferred to the newly formed Croatian Intelligence Agency (HIS), where he taught at the agency's internal training centre, before retiring in 1998.