A U.S. federal court has blocked the extradition of a former Marine who took part in a 2019 break-in at the North Korean Embassy in Madrid, concluding that sending him to Spain would put his life at risk from DPRK agents.

According to a ruling made public last week, Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha of the Central District of California granted Christopher Ahn’s petition for habeas corpus, a legal mechanism allowing a person to challenge their detention.

The ruling, originally filed on March 31, marks “the first time in U.S. history that a federal court has denied international extradition on humanitarian grounds,”