On Friday, the Ecuador Police's unusual and "authoritarian" act of raiding the Mexican Embassy in Ecuador's capital city Quito to arrest a controversial politician, who had been granted asylum by Mexican authorities, unleashed a diplomatic storm in Latin America.
After the Ecuadorian police took into custody the country's former vice president Jorge Glas, who faces several graft charges, Mexico snapped all relations with Ecuador. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blasted the unusual diplomatic incursion and arrest as an "authoritarian" act as well as a breach of international law and Mexico's sovereignty.
Obrador found supporters in other Latin American countries, including Brazil, which condemned Quito’s move as a "clear violation" of international norms and insisted that the country "must be subject to strong repudiation, whatever the justification for its implementation."
But, who is Jorge Glas, the former politician who faces a slew of corruption charges?
Glas, an electrical engineer-turned-politician, was in charge of the country's ministries of telecommunications and strategic sectors coordination before becoming leftist former President Rafael Correa's running mate last decade. He served as Correa's vice president between 2013 and 2017 and for a few months under then-President Lenin Moreno.
He was also in charge of the rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts after a powerful earthquake hit the country in 2016 killing hundreds.
However, his term as vice president in the Moreno government only lasted only a few months. In 2017, he was ousted and sentenced to six years in prison after being found guilty of receiving over $13.5 million in bribes.
In 2020, Glas was found guilty in another bribery case which involved accepting money in exchange for issuing public contracts between 2012 and 2016. Besides Glas, President Correa was also accused of accepting some $8 million in bribes. Both were sentenced to eight years in prison, a conviction that both Glas and Correa claimed was politically motivated.
In 2022, Judge Emerson Curipallo, in a controversial ruling, ordered that Glas be freed from prison. Curipallo is now in custody while authorities investigate his alleged role in what prosecutors say was a bribery scheme for favourable rulings for a drug lord and his relatives.
Last year, Glas moved into the Mexican embassy on December 17, seeking asylum. Since then, he has stayed on the Mexican Embassy’s grounds in Quito.
Riot police officers and members of the diplomatic police corps stand guard outside the Ecuadorian embassy in Mexico City |AFP
His seeking of asylum came at a time when authorities ordered him to appear before prosecutors to answer questions in a corruption probe against him. Prosecutors are looking into alleged mismanagement of funds meant for the earthquake reconstruction efforts.
The Mexican government granted him political asylum on Friday, just a few hours before police raided the embassy.
