2024-04-27 01:13:20
Jorge Glas was arrested after an Ecuadorian police attack on the Mexican embassy in the midst of investigations for various crimes.
This weekend, Ecuadorian police officers stormed the Embassy of Mexico in Quito to arrest the former vice president, Jorge Glas Espinel, who had received political asylum there. After this controversial event, Mexico broke foreign relations with Ecuador.
To contextualize, as soon as the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the country’s decision to grant asylum, the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry expressed its opposition to the determination.
Despite Ecuador’s rejection of said resolution, they were waiting for safe passage for Jorge Glas at the Mexican embassy. However, The police forcibly entered the diplomatic headquarters to capture the former vice president.
Who is Jorge Glas and why was he detained at the Mexican Embassy?
Jorge Glas is a 54-year-old man, he is an electrical engineer by profession and He has a friendship for several years with Rafael Correa.
They met in Guayaquil when they were children and were both part of a local Boys Scout group. After that, they remained close over the years, where Glas participated in his friend’s presidential campaigns.
In this way, it was part of the Correa governmentperforming as president of the Solidarity Fund (2007-2009), and then act as Minister of Telecommunications (2009-2010) and was later named as coordinator of Strategic Sectors (2010-2012).
In 2012, Glas was part of the electoral pairing of candidates for president and vice president along with Correa, which is why he won the vice presidency after winning at the polls. Later, she repeated the formula and result with Lenín Moreno in 2017.
The crimes and precautionary measures of the vice president of Ecuador
However, Moreno removed Glas from office when various accusations of corruption began to come to light. Due to the Odebrecht case, the vice president was accused of receiving a bribe of approximately US$35 million by the Brazilian construction company. For this reason, He received an eight-year sentence for the crime of bribery and another six years for illicit association.
After being stripped of the position of vice president, the man surrendered to the authorities in 2018 to serve a consolidated sentence of eight years. After serving half of his sentence, Glas was released on parole.
However, he was once again placed under the scrutiny of justice and a new investigation was initiated against him. This time for the crime of embezzlement of funds after the earthquake that shook the province of Manabí in 2016.
In said investigation, Jorge Glas in January of this year, received a conviction and arrest warrant by the National Court of Justice for bribery, embezzlement of public funds and illicit association. But, the former vice president was already a guest at the Mexican Embassy.
On March 1, after the court order against Glas, Ecuador requested permission from Mexican diplomacy to enter the headquarters and capture the 54-year-old man. However, the request was rejected arguing that the embassy’s immunity would be violated.
Ecuadorian media report Jorge Glas’ suicide attempt
According to Ecuadorian media, the politician would have been transferred Guayaquil Military Hospital due to a drug overdose after alleged suicide attempt.
In detail, he would have been declared in a self-induced deep coma due to the “intake of anxiolytic, antidepressant and sedative medications“, according to the media Primicias.
In this context, they state that the former vice president was stabilized in the care center to which he was transferred.