diff --git a/Modules/_ssl.c b/Modules/_ssl.c
index e44fa074fab..1131bfa7380 100644
--- a/Modules/_ssl.c
+++ b/Modules/_ssl.c
@@ -978,6 +978,7 @@ PySSL_test_decode_certificate (PyObject *mod, PyObject *args) {
     }
 
     retval = _decode_certificate(x, verbose);
+    X509_free(x);
 
   fail0: