Former vice president of Ecuador Jorge Glas goes on hunger strike in prison, says lawyer

Jorge Glasformer vice president of Ecuador during the presidential term of Rafael Corrêawho the police arrested last Friday when he attacked the Embassy of Mexico where he has just received asylum from the Mexican Government, he began a hunger strike in prison, as confirmed by his lawyer Sonia Vera.

In a message on social media, Vera indicated that the legal team leading Glas’ defense “finally“managed to contact the former vice president, who is detained in The rockthe maximum security prison of Ecuadorlocated in the city of Guayaquil.

#URGENT: Former vice-president Jorge Glas narrates how he was detained by public forces during last Friday’s operation. The lawyer guarantees that they managed to establish contact after more than five days. Glas is on hunger strike.@teleSURtvpic.twitter.com/hfHolpfjQX

-Elena Rodríguez Yánez (@ElenaDeQuito) April 10, 2024

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On Monday, Glas was hospitalized in an emergency after an apparent decompensation which, according to a police report seen by the defense, could have been caused by an overdose of medication, while prison authorities attributed it to his refusal to eat food.

In a fragment of a video conference with Jorge Glas Shared by the lawyer, the former vice president narrates that the police officers who arrested him allegedly beat him and that this prevented him from standing while they read him his rights, which according to the detainee is filmed by the security cameras at the Mexican Embassy.

Vera highlighted that Glas thanked the Mexican president’s government, Andrés Manuel López Obradorfor granting him asylum.

“Asylum did not give me freedom, but it gave me the dignity of being a politically persecuted person.“, said Glas, according to a quote published by the lawyer.

Glas was in Mexican Embassy in Quito since December 17, 2023, where he had entered as a guest and subsequently requested asylum after declaring himself politically persecuted and a victim of ‘legal war‘ (use of the judicial apparatus against political opponents), which the Ecuadorian Government emphatically rejects.

The former vice president, who held the position during the presidential term of Rafael Corrêa (2007-2017) and also at the beginning of the management of the Lenin Moreno (2017-2021), had an arrest warrant for his return to prison, as he was accused of the alleged crime of embezzlement (misappropriation of public funds) in the case of reconstruction after the 2016 earthquake.

The court had also decided that he should return to prison to finish serving an eight-year prison sentence for two convictions for bribery and illicit association, the last of which under the Odebrecht caseof which around five years have passed between 2017 and 2022.

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The Ecuadorian Police invasion of the Embassy of Mexico led the López Obrador Government to break diplomatic relations with Ecuador and file a complaint against the International Court of Justice in Have itconsidering its sovereignty and international law violated.

The forced entry into the diplomatic headquarters was also strongly condemned this Wednesday by the Council of Organization of American States (OAS), as well as by the international community.

Ecuador was the only country to vote against the resolution of the OAS considering that Mexico violated the Diplomatic Asylum Convention when granting asylum to a person prosecuted for common crimes, which he considers to be interference in internal affairs.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.