Ecuador imprisons Glas at the cost of widespread condemnation for attacking the Mexican Embassy

The Government of the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, achieved its objective of returning Jorge Glas, former vice president of Rafael Correa, to prison, but at the cost of breaking diplomatic relations with Mexico and Nicaragua and receiving an almost unanimous condemnation from the international community for having invaded the Mexican Embassy to arrest him.

After having been in the Flagrancy Unit of Quito, Glas was transferred by plane to the maximum security prison of La Roca, located in the prison complex of the city of Guayaquil and reserved for the most dangerous prisoners.

The former vice president was under an arrest warrant and placed in preventive detention in the case of the reconstruction of the coastal province of Manabí, the most affected by the strong earthquake of 2016, where he is accused of alleged embezzlement (embezzlement of public funds).

He also had to return to prison to finish serving an eight-year prison sentence for two convictions for bribery and illicit association after not receiving the prison benefit of pre-release, after having combined the two sentences and having served nearly five years in prison. , between 2017 and 2022.

Since mid-December 2023, he had stayed at the Mexican Embassy in Quito to request political asylum by declaring himself as politically persecuted and a victim of ‘lawfare’ (use of the judicial apparatus against political adversaries), which was granted to him on Friday.

Asylum to Glas was granted by Mexico at the moment of greatest tension in relations with Ecuador, after the Noboa Government expelled the ambassador, Raquel Serur, in response to statements by President López Obrador that linked the murder of the candidate presidential Fernando Villavicencio with the electoral victory of Noboa against the Correista candidate Luisa González.