The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Friday that Germany is not allowed to extradite a Serbian national to the United States. The ruling decrees that a non-EU citizen cannot be sent to serve jail time for the same crime twice.

This applies even if the two countries have an extradition treaty, the court said, as the US and Germany do.

The US had made an extradition request for the man, who was accused of acts of digital fraud against, amongst other entities, US government bodies and banks from 2008 to 2013. 

He was convicted in Slovenia and served out his sentence there. The ECJ said in their decision that he had already done his time.

The case was referred to the ECJ by a Munich court dealing with the extradition process. 

Schengen rules override extradition treaty, court says

In Friday's ruling, the court said that the prohibition of double punishment as laid out in the Schengen free-movement treaty also applied to non-EU citizens who were residing inside its borders.

Otherwise the Schengen area would not be an "area of freedom, security and justice" where member states are required to recognizie the sanctity of each other's judicial decisions, the court said in a press release.

Therefore, the US-Germany extradition treaty does not apply in this case.

es/rt (dpa, KNA)

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