Mexico breaks relations with Ecuador after the police operation at its embassy in Quito to capture former vice president Glas

The ambassador in charge of Mexico in Ecuador, Roberto Canseco, was at the diplomatic headquarters when the police operation began and confronted the agents.

“At the risk of my life I defended the honor and sovereignty of my country. This can not be, It’s incredible that something like this happened.”, he assured the media.

“I am very worried that they could kill him (Jorge Glas). There is no basis for doing this. We were about to leave and suddenly we ran into police officers, thieves who entered the embassy at night,” he added.

According to Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena, several embassy workers were attacked in the incident.

A statement from the presidency of Ecuador confirmed Glas’s arrest and specified that the former vice president had been “placed at the orders of the competent authorities.”

Furthermore, the official text accused the Mexican embassy of having “abused immunities and privileges” and denounced that the diplomatic asylum granted to Glas was “contrary to the conventional legal framework.”

“Ecuador is a sovereign country and we are not going to allow any criminal to go unpunished,” the statement said.

The assault on the Mexican embassy in Quito occurred hours after the López Obrador government reported that it had granted political asylum to Jorge Glas.

“The right of asylum is sacred and we are acting in full congruence with international conventions,” wrote Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena on the social network X.

“By granting asylum to Jorge Glas, I trust that the government of Ecuador will have safe passage as soon as possible.”

However, the government of President Daniel Noboa refused to provide safe conduct so that the former vice president could travel to Mexico, and hours later the incident occurred at the diplomatic headquarters in Quito.

In statements to the press hours after what happened, the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister, Gabriela Sommerfeld, declared that the decision to carry out the operation was made by President Daniel Noboa “given the real risk of imminent escape of the citizen required by justice.”

The events aroused a unanimous reaction of rejection by the governments of the region and international organizations.

Several leaders expressed that this is a violation of international instruments that regulate diplomatic relations and the right to asylum.

Xiomara Castro de Zelayapresident of Honduras, wrote in her account on X that the assault on the Mexican embassy “with the aim of kidnapping” Glas “constitutes an intolerable act for the international community, given that it ignores the historic and fundamental right to asylum.”

Castro repudiated what he considers a “violation of the sovereignty of the Mexican State and international law.”

The government of Nicaragua broke its diplomatic relations with Ecuador this Saturday in solidarity with Mexico in the face of the events that he described as “unusual and reprehensible.”

For his part, the former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa He stated that: “What the Noboa government has done It is unprecedented in Latin American history.”.

“Not even in the worst dictatorships has a country’s embassy been violated. We do not live in a State of law, but in a State of barbarism, with an improvised system that confuses the Homeland with one of its banana farms,” he added on the X social network.

He also held Daniel Noboa responsible for the safety and physical and psychological integrity of Glas.

The former presidential candidate related to Correa, Luisa González, asked for Noboa’s resignation due to the events, and her party’s bench (the largest in the Assembly) declared itself in opposition to the government.

The mayor of Quito, Pabel Muñoz, described what happened as “unacceptable” and “a global shame.”

But the government of Ecuador assures that it defends national sovereignty without allowing anyone to intervene in the country’s internal affairs.

Jorge Glas was sentenced in 2017 to six years in prison as the author of a crime of illicit association in the corruption plot by the bribes from the Brazilian company Odebrecht.

In 2020, the Ecuadorian justice system found him guilty of being the instigator of a crime of aggravated passive bribery, for which he was sentenced to eight years in prison.

In November 2022, Glas was provisionally released after partially serving his four-and-a-half-year sentence after his lawyer filed a habeas corpus petition.

According to the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Glas went to the Mexican embassy on December 17 expressing “fear for their safety and personal freedom.”

Ecuador’s judicial authorities had summoned the former vice president to appear in a case involving public funds raised to help rebuild the coastal province of Manabí after the 2016 earthquake.

His lawyer, Eduardo Franco Loor, then denounced political persecution.

“There has been political persecution since 2017, recently escalated by the State Attorney General who arbitrarily intends to prosecute and detain Jorge Glas, even though he is an innocent person,” the lawyer told the Reuters news agency.

In her statements this Saturday, the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister expressed that “for Ecuador, no criminal can be considered politically persecuted when he has been sentenced with an enforceable sentence and with an arrest warrant issued by the judicial authorities.”