BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A court has convicted a former Serbian diplomat of helping a Serb college basketball player flee the U.S. after beating a fellow American student into a coma.

In its ruling Tuesday, the court sentenced former deputy consul in New York Igor Milosevic to 18 months in prison.

He was found guilty of issuing emergency travel documents to Miladin Kovacevic who fled the United States after severely beating Brian Steinhauer in May 2008.

Kovacevic is serving a two-year sentence imposed by a Belgrade court a year ago for the assault, which occurred at the Rathskeller Pub in Binghamton. The beating left Steinhauer with skull fractures and brain injury. Steinhauer has since recovered from his injuries.

The case had strained relations between Washington and Belgrade.

Serbia cited a legal ban on extradition as the reason it could not hand over Kovacevic for a trial in the U.S.