Milanovic was visiting the Koncar electrical company in Zagreb and a reporter asked whether the government would extradite Perkovic to which Milanovic responded, "I don't understand the question".

Asked whether amendments to the law on cooperation in judicial and criminal matters with EU member states was sent to parliamentary procedure in an effort to prevent Perkovic's extradition, Milanovic claimed that the amendments had been forwarded to parliament "without any ulterior intentions".

"That question needs to be put to those people after whom we have been clearing their mess for the past 20 years. We had sent the amendments without any hidden intentions about two or three weeks ago and that's all I can say. My conscience is absolutely clear", he said.

The amendments were adopted at the cabinet meeting last week and they foresee that European warrants for arrest would be enforced for criminal offences committed after 7 August 2002. That means that the warrant would not refer to Perkovic. Perkovic is suspected in Germany for having masterminded the murder of a Croat political emigrant, Stjepan Djurekovic who was assassinated near Munich in 1983.

Milanovic added that the did not believe that the amendments would lead to any bad blood in Croatian-German relations as this was a "hypothetical question".

You can ask Justice Minister Orsat Miljenic, but I believe that there has been absolutely no hidden motives, this is usual procedure as proposed by the government's working group, the prime minister said, adding that information of the possible arrest and extradition of Perkovic came after that and "for the umpteenth time in the past ten years".

"I would like for someone who knows more about the matter to say something and that is not Miljenic nor I. That's the president of the HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union - Tomislav Karamarko). I don't want to be mixed up in all this", said Milanovic.

On 1 July, when it enters the European Union, Croatia can expect a warrant from Germany for the arrest of former Yugoslav intelligence officer, Josip Perkovic, who is believed to have masterminded the murder of Croatian emigrant Stjepan Djurekovic near Munich in June 1983, the German Focus weekly reported on Sunday.

The German federal prosecutorial authorities will forward to Zagreb, on the first day of Croatia's EU membership, the warrant for the arrest of Perkovic, 68, and for his extradition to Germany.

Perkovic, who used to be at the helm of Croatia's branch of the Yugoslav State Security Service (SDS), is charged with having sent murderers to kill dissident Djurekovic.

In 2008, Krunoslav Prates, a Croatian citizen, was convicted by the Munich High State Court to life imprisonment for his role in the execution of Djurekovic, who was found dead in a garage in the Bavarian town of Wolfratshausen.