The Glas affair
Why Ecuador risked global condemnation to storm Mexico’s embassy
Jorge Glas, who had claimed asylum from Mexico, is accused of abetting drug networks
On april 5th Ecuadorian police scaled the walls of the Mexican embassy (pictured) in Quito, Ecuador’s capital.
They stormed the building and seized Jorge Glas, Ecuador’s former vice-president.
He had been granted asylum by Mexico just hours earlier.
(Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s president, is sympathetic to Mr Glas’s party.)
For domestic police to raid an embassy is extremely unusual.
It has outraged diplomats and been condemned around the world.
Mexico immediately brought the case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
At first glance the assault seems foolish.
Why would Daniel Noboa, Ecuador’s president, jeopardise his country’s reputation when it needs international support in its battle against drug gangs, which have threatened parts of the state itself?
The answer seems to be that Mr Noboa believes that Mr Glas is a central figure in that struggle.
Ecuadorian prosecutors say Mr Glas is entangled with the gangs.
Had he been able to evade justice and flee to Mexico, it would have been embarrassing for the president, especially after two drug bosses, Adolfo Macías and Fabricio Colón Pico, escaped from prison in January, just weeks after Mr Noboa took office.
On April 21st Ecuadorians will vote on a set of security measures proposed by Mr Noboa, including harsher penalties for gang-related crimes such as kidnapping, and legalising extradition for gang members.
To boost his standing at home, Mr Noboa is prepared to risk international opprobrium.
For many Ecuadorians Mr Glas is the embodiment of the corruption that has long plagued their country.
In office he was known as “the constructor” for his success in getting things built, most notably eight hydroelectric plants.
But prosecutors allege that all the while he was taking bribes, including some $13.5m from Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction firm.
In 2017 he was sentenced to six years in prison on those charges, and in 2020 he received another eight-year sentence on a separate bribery charge.
In 2022 Mr Glas was conditionally released by Emerson Curipallo, a judge.
In December 2023 Ecuadorian prosecutors said they had found evidence that Leandro Norero, a drug lord, had paid Mr Curipallo a bribe of $250,000 to secure Mr Glas’s release.
In March Marcelo Lasso, a cellmate of Mr Norero’s, gave evidence in the state’s investigation into organised crime and corruption.
He said he had seen Mr Norero take video calls with Mr Glas’s former boss, ex-president Rafael Correa, in which they discussed Mr Glas’s release.
Mr Curipallo is now in prison for unlawfully releasing 60 people with links to organised crime.
He says his detention is illegal.
Sonia Vera, the former vice-president’s lawyer, says he is being persecuted and that there is “no due process”.
Ms Vera also says that Mr Glas attempted suicide three days after he was seized.
He has since been refusing to eat.
She also claims that Mr Glas has been tortured, and says he has yet to be given medicine he needs for a chronic medical condition, treatment for two broken thumbs, or antidepressants that he was prescribed after witnessing a massacre in Cotopaxi prison.
The German foreign office says it is trying to establish contact with Mr Glas, as he has German as well as Ecuadorian citizenship.
To many Mr Glas, who faces more than 30 charges, is deplorable.
Comunicaliza, a pollster based in Quito, reckons that a mere 16% of Ecuadorians approve of the former vice-president.
A few, though, see him as an opposition politician who is being hounded by the government for his association with the divisive figure of Mr Correa.
The debate around Mr Glas has been polarised, but both sides could be right.
It is possible to be a bad man fleeing from justice and a victim of political persecution at the same time.
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