Jorge Glas, Vice President of Ecuador in the governments of Rafael Correa and Lenín Moreno, spent three days as a guest at the Mexican Embassy in Quito. He appeared at the diplomatic headquarters on Sunday afternoon, December 17, and “expressed fear for his safety and personal freedom,” the Mexican foreign policy statement said. For his lawyer Franco Loor, the former vice president is “politically persecuted” and confirmed to EL PAÍS that they will submit a request for political asylum to the Mexican authorities this Wednesday.
The entry into the diplomatic legation came after prosecutors asked the police commander to locate and arrest Glas so that he could appear at an investigation into the use of funds for the reconstruction of the earthquake-hit provinces of Manabí and Esmeraldas. On April 16, 2016, which left almost 700 people.
“There is no arrest warrant. We did not request that he be arrested,” said prosecutor Diana Salazar in an interview on the Teleamazonas channel. “You can’t say we are pursuing him, we are just carrying out investigative actions,” he added. However, lawyer Loor insists that “arrest without a warrant does not exist in Ecuadorian regulations” and that his client is afraid of being sent back to prison “where drug traffickers rule.” “The clearest example is the murder of the six people imprisoned in prisons for the crime of Fernando Villavicencio,” he said.
Two sentences weigh on Jorge Glas that he was served in freedom thanks to a precautionary measure taken by Judge Emerson Curipallo. The judge has been in custody since December 14 for his alleged involvement in a corruption structure in the judicial system that includes the President of the Judicial Council, judges, prosecutors, police officers, secretaries, experts and lawyers.
Gla held important positions in the Correa and Moreno governments, as Minister of Telecommunications and at the head of all strategic sector ministries. He faces a six-year prison sentence for illicit association in the Odebrecht case. Another eight years for bribery in the bribery case in which Rafael Correa and more than a dozen officials and businessmen were also convicted. Correa denies the allegations.
The reconstruction case investigated by the prosecutor's office was initiated following several complaints in 2019 and 2020, but it was not until May 2023 that the case moved forward. In June, prosecutors asked the judge handling the case to hold a hearing to file charges against Jorge Glas and other officials for the alleged crime of embezzlement. However, no date has been set for the trial so far.
Jorge Glas was chairman of the Reconstruction Committee, which had almost 3,000 million dollars at its disposal thanks to a tax levied on Ecuadorians through a law called “Solidarity” approved by the Assembly with a majority of the Correísta, as well as international loans for reconstruction and the reactivation of areas affected by earthquakes. Seven years later, some of the projects, such as housing and hospitals, were not realized. According to an audit by the Comptroller's Office, several million dollars of that fund were used for corruption, such as repairing roads and overpasses.
Since Jorge Glas joined the diplomatic mission, the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry has not commented. Once the request for political asylum is formalized, “the Mexican government will carefully analyze it and collect the necessary information in order to act accordingly in accordance with the relevant international treaties,” said a statement from the Mexican Foreign Ministry.
The Mexican government is already welcoming to its territory seven other Correa officials who had previously sought refuge in the embassy in Quito, including the former president's right-hand man, Ricardo Patiño, who was also Ecuador's foreign minister. Also the former President of the Assembly, Gabriela Rivadeneira, the deputies Soledad Buendía, Carlos Viteri Gualinga and Edwin Jarrín, against whom no criminal proceedings have been initiated; However, they declared themselves politically persecuted and left the country in 2019 after violent demonstrations during a nationwide strike.
The former Minister of Transport and Public Works, María de los Ángeles Duarte, took refuge in the Argentine embassy for almost three years to avoid an eight-year prison sentence for the same bribery case, until she went on the run in March 2023 that it was the break in relations between the two governments.