Spain's National Court has ruled against extraditing back to Morocco a convicted Spanish pedophile whose release triggered protests in the North African country.

A court statement Monday said Daniel Galvan Vina would not be handed back because under a bilateral agreement Spain and Morocco do not extradite their citizens to each other. The court said, however, it would begin a process to ensure that Galvan serves out his sentence in a Spanish jail, something the convict had originally asked for.

Galvan was convicted of raping 11 children in Morocco and sentenced to 30 years prison in 2011. He was mistakenly pardoned by Morocco's King Mohammed VI in July but was arrested in Spain days later after the king rescinded his pardon following the protests.

A Russian judge refused Monday to free Australian Greenpeace activist Colin Russell, who was among 30 people arrested following a protest against oil drilling in the Arctic, signaling that others also could be kept in jail for three more months pending trial.

In a subsequent hearing, however, a judge agreed to free a Russian doctor who was on the Greenpeace ship when it was seized by the Russian coast guard on Sept. 18. Yekaterina Zaspa was released on bail of 2 million rubles ($61,500).

Investigators had asked St. Petersburg courts to extend the detention period of all 30. Hearings were scheduled Monday for seven of the group.

During similar hearings two months ago on whether to jail the defendants, the rulings were the same in all 30 cases, which made Monday's release of the Russian doctor unexpected.

The Russians arrested everyone on board the ship, including cooks and journalists documenting the protest, after a few of the environmental activists tried to scale an offshore drilling platform owned by Russian state energy giant Gazprom.