Spain’s Constitutional Court decided Monday to cancel an earlier verdict ordering the extradition of fugitive businessman Hussein Salem to Egypt, accepting his appeal to the verdict.

Salem, a close ally to deposed President Hosni Mubarak, fled to Spain in February 2011 during the January uprising that toppled Mubarak.

In June, Salem, along with Mubarak, was acquitted of corruption in relation to Egypt’s natural gas export deal with Israel. He was, however, sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in March for a corrupt land deal.

In his appeal, Salem said he carries Spanish citizenship and argued that charges of money laundering, posed by Egyptian authorities against him, have all been politicized. He demanded that the Spanish court consider the “revolutionary situation in Egypt…and the judicial turbulence.”

The same court had struck down verdicts to hand over Salem’s son Khaled and his daughter Magda to Egypt.

The court’s decisions are final and unchallengeable before any other judicial body.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm