Court determines Glas’ detention illegal; SRE accuses political persecution

The National Court of Justice of Ecuador (CNJ) considered “illegal and arbitrary” the capture of the former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas during the assault on the Mexican embassy in Quito, but the former official will remain imprisoned for pending sentences, the court announced yesterday.

Glas, whose arrest a week ago led Mexico to break relations with Ecuador, sought to obtain his freedom through an appeal habeas corpuswith which he also wanted the justice system to declare his detention illegal.

During the hearing to resolve the request, which began on Thursday, the CNJ determined the illegality and arbitrariness of the arrest of the former vice president (2013-2017) for alleged embezzlement.

Glas’s capture occurred on the night of April 5, hours after Mexico granted him political asylum.

The court judged the illegality of the detention considering that there was no search warrant to enter the diplomatic headquarters. As a result of the assault, Mexico asked to suspend Ecuador from the UN, in a lawsuit filed on Thursday before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

But the highest Ecuadorian court determined at the same time that Glas must remain in a high-security prison in Guayaquil (southwest) for pending convictions in two other corruption cases.

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About fifty supporters of the former vice president loudly celebrated outside the CNJ the decision to consider his capture “illegal.”

The legal consultant of the Mexican Foreign Ministry, Alejandro Celorio, said that the country views the judicial decision with “optimism,” as it “confirms” that Glas “was facing political persecution.”

Surely the granting of other precautionary measures such as those requested by Colombia” to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in favor of the former official will confirm that he is a politically persecuted person, Celorio added.

Glas took refuge in the Mexican embassy last December, before the court issued a prison order for him for alleged embezzlement in the management of funds for the reconstruction of towns devastated by an earthquake in 2016, a process that is ongoing.

Glas was due to serve eight years in prison for previous convictions in two corruption cases. However, he was released from prison in 2022 after a precautionary measure, after being imprisoned for five years, and had to appear periodically before the authority.

MEXICO TAKES CASE BEFORE THE UN

The Foreign Ministry reported yesterday that the representative of Mexico to the United Nations, Héctor Vasconcelos, delivered “a communication addressed to the Secretary General António Guterres, to denounce the serious violations that Ecuador incurred, due to the violent entry of Ecuadorian security forces into the embassy of Mexico in Quito, and the attacks against the person and dignity of its diplomatic staff.”

Likewise, it was requested that the information be circulated among all UN members and be incorporated into the agenda of the General Assembly to discuss measures to improve the protection and security of diplomatic missions.

Meanwhile, the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador He said yesterday that “the reparation of the damage is first, that if the International Court of Justice in The Hague considers it, his rights as a Member State of the United Nations will be suspended, in the meantime, he does not know how to pronounce and offer an apology and the commitment to non-repetition.”

-Ernesto Méndez and Miguel Rivera

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