39As the Advocate General has observed in point 56 of his Opinion, extradition is a procedure whose aim is to combat the impunity of a person who is present in a territory other than that in which he has allegedly committed an offence. As several national governments have noted in their observations to the Court, although, in the light of the maxim ‘aut dedere, aut judicare’ (either extradite or prosecute), the non-extradition of its own nationals is generally counterbalanced by the possibility for the requested Member State to prosecute such nationals for serious offences committed outside its territory, that Member State as a general rule has no jurisdiction to try cases concerning such acts when neither the perpetrator nor the victim of the alleged offence is a national of that Member State. Extradition thus allows offences committed in the territory of a State by persons who have fled that territory not to remain unpunished.
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