The Foreign Ministry of Ecuador asked the Mexican Embassy in Quito for “consent so that law enforcement can comply with the order of the National Court of Justice” and capture Jorge Glas, former vice president of the country, who has been a guest for 74 days. in that diplomatic mission.
Mexico has not responded so far to the request of the Ecuadorian Government, which in a document reminded it that it has sent all the information on the criminal cases against Glas.
The former vice president appeared before that diplomatic headquarters on December 17, 2023 and expressed “fear for his personal safety and freedom.”
Outside the Embassy, a group of police officers remain at the door waiting for instructions.
According to the petition sent on February 29, the Foreign Ministry, in at least six letters, has supported that the political asylum requested by Glas not be granted.
For Ecuador, “the granting of diplomatic asylum would not be lawful, under the provisions of Article III of the 1954 Convention on Diplomatic Asylum,” according to the document.
It refers to the fact that this measure could not be granted to asylum seekers who are accused, prosecuted or convicted of common crimes, without having served the respective sentences.
Jorge Glas was Rafael Correa's vice president and the winning pairing with Lenin Moreno, who shortly after coming to power withdrew his support when he was prosecuted in a criminal case for corruption, where Correa was also sentenced.
In January 2024, a judge requested the capture of Glas as a defendant in a new case for the alleged crime of embezzlement.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, funds were diverted that were intended for the reconstruction of the provinces destroyed by the April 2016 earthquake, where nearly 700 people died and thousands were affected.
At that time, Correa appointed Glas to lead the Reconstruction Committee that managed nearly 3 billion dollars, collected from taxes, loans and donations.
The former vice president, in an attempt to evade being prosecuted in this case, took refuge in the diplomatic headquarters of Mexico, which is analyzing the official's asylum request.
Glas was already sentenced to two sentences, one for illicit association and another for bribery.
Between the two they add up to a sentence of 14 years that he had to serve in prison, of which only five were spent in the Cotopaxi prison.
Since December 2022, he remained on conditional release thanks to a precautionary measure granted by Judge Emerson Curipallo, who is detained for his alleged participation in a corruption structure in the judicial system in the case called by the Prosecutor's Office as
Metastasis
.
The same day that the Foreign Ministry formalized its request to enter the Mexican Embassy to arrest Glas, the Constitutional Court revoked the precautionary measures that allowed conditional freedom to the former vice president and 22 other people, who benefited from these legal resources.
The judges consider that they were inadmissible, because they seek to interrupt the effects of criminal sentences and illegitimately recover their freedom.
President Daniel Noboa and the Chancellor, Gabriela Sommerfeld, have reiterated that they will not grant safe conduct to allow Glas to leave the Embassy, although in Ecuador there is evidence that diplomatic channels are not always necessary.
In March 2023, María de los Ángeles Duarte, sentenced for corruption in the same Glas case, escaped from the Argentine Embassy in a secret operation that marked the rupture of relations between both countries.
She is now a refugee in Venezuela.
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