Mexico Cuts Ties With Ecuador After Police Storm Its Embassy To Arrest Former Ecuadorian Vice President
Mexico severed its diplomatic ties with Ecuador after its embassy was raided by police to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice President who is facing charges of corruption.
Mexico has severed its diplomatic ties with Ecuador after the police stormed its embassy in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice-President Jorge Glas.
The Ecuadorian police raided the Mexican embassy late Friday through the external doors to arrest Jorge Glas who took refuge in the embassy in December last year after an arrest warrant was issued against him for alleged corruption.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said they had "forcibly entered" the embassy in a "flagrant violation of international law", reported BBC.
The Mexican government's foreign relations secretary said that the move will be challenged at the World Court in Hague, as per an Associated Press report.
“This is not possible. It cannot be. This is crazy,” Roberto Canseco, head of the Mexican consular section in Quito, told local press while standing outside the embassy right after the raid. “I am very worried because they could kill him. There is no basis to do this. This is totally outside the norm.”
The Ecuadorian politician has now been flown under police guard to the city of Guayaquil, where he is expected to await trial in a maximum security prison.
His attorney told the AP that officers broke into his room and as he resisted the attempt to put his hands behind his back, she said the officers “knocked him to the floor, kicked him in the head, in the spine, in the legs, the hands,” and when he “couldn’t walk, they dragged him out.”
He served as the Vice President of Ecuador between 2013 and 2017 but was relieved of his duties because of mounting corruption allegations against him.
He was later sentenced to six years in jail in 2017 in connection with corruption at the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. According to prosecutors, he took $13.5m (£10.2m) in bribes, as per the BBC report.
However, Glas's lawyers said he was innocent.
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