Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced today that Mexico is suspending diplomatic relations with the Government of Ecuador after police stormed the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas, convicted in his country of corruption. Glas had taken refuge in the Mexican diplomatic headquarters since December 17, 2023.
“Alicia Bárcena, our Secretary of Foreign Affairs, has just informed me that police from Ecuador forcibly entered our embassy and detained the former vice president of that country who was a refugee and processing asylum due to the persecution and harassment he faces” , reported the Mexican president through his account on X. López Obrador considers that this act is a flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of Mexico.
Bárcena herself confirmed the immediate rupture of diplomatic relations with Ecuador and reiterated that the entry into the embassy of members of the Ecuadorian police represents a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The police jumped over the wall of the building to arrest Glas, and then took him into custody in a unit of the Prosecutor’s Office in Quito, although the Ecuadorian authorities, at the moment, have not confirmed this.
For his part, the head of the Foreign Ministry and Political Affairs of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador, Roberto Canseco, visibly upset, reported that the Police raided the diplomatic legation “like criminals.” In videos circulating on social networks, Canseco can be seen at the moment when he leaves the Embassy running after vehicles with tinted windows and when trying to reach them he is intercepted by police and falls to the ground.
Speaking to reporters outside the Embassy, ??Canseco said he hit his head on the ground and physically tried to prevent them from entering the legation. “Like criminals they raided the Mexican Embassy in Ecuador. This is not possible. It cannot be. It is crazy,” he said. Canseco also expressed concern about Glas “because they could kill him.”
“There is no basis for doing this,” he stated, indicating that there was no prior notice about the Police’s entry. “This is totally unacceptable, this cannot be, it is barbarism,” said Canseco and assured that the agents hit him when he confronted them to try to prevent them from violating the space of the Mexican Embassy in Quito.
Glas, who was vice president during periods of the Government of Rafael Correa (2007-2017) and at the beginning of the administration of Lenin Moreno (2017-2021), is being prosecuted for alleged embezzlement of funds in the so-called ‘Reconstruction’ case of the province of Manabí, after the 2016 earthquake.
