An appeals court in Montenegro has nullified a recent ruling that Kwon Do-hyeong, the disgraced co-founder of cryptocurrency firm Terraform Labs, should be extradited to the United States on fraud charges.

The Appellate Court of Montenegro announced the ruling on its homepage on Tuesday, overturning the extradition decision made by the High Court in Podgorica and sending the case back for a retrial. 

The Appellate Court said there was a lack of clarity in determining who was the first to file a request for extradition, showing “significant violations of the provisions of criminal procedure.”

On February 20, the High Court permitted the extradition of Kwon to the U.S., due to the earlier arrival of the U.S.’ formal extradition request, which was received on March 27 last year, a day before South Korea’s. 

However, the Appellate Court challenged the ruling, pointing out that South Korea’s request had been communicated via email on March 24 and 26, preceding its formal request on March 28.

Kwon, the key figure in the 2022 collapse of the TerraUSD and Luna cryptocurrencies, had fled to Singapore, Dubai and Serbia before being arrested at Podgorica airport in March last year for attempting to fly out of the country using fake passports.