By Alessandra Valencia
QUITO (Reuters) – Detained former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas was taken to hospital on Monday after feeling ill in a Guayaquil prison, prison authorities said, hours after his lawyers complained of not having been able to contact him.
Glas, already convicted twice for corruption and now facing new charges, was arrested on Friday after a police raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito, where he had been living since December.
In a statement published on X, prison agency SNAI said Glas had been taken to the naval hospital in Guayaquil around noon local time.
Glas became ill “after refusing to eat food provided (at the prison) for the past 24 hours,” the statement said.
His condition was stable, the statement added.
The unusual raid that led to his arrest brought the conflict between the two countries to a head, forcing Mexico to suspend diplomatic relations with Ecuador and drawing criticism from countries in the region and elsewhere.
Ecuador defended the violation of Mexican sovereign territory at the embassy, arguing that the North American country cannot grant Glas asylum if he faces charges and that Ecuador had information about an imminent escape plan.
Glas was hospitalized after one of his lawyers, Sonia Vera, published an open letter dated Sunday expressing her “deep concern and alarm” that Glas had been able to speak to his legal team, adding that it was “a serious breach of the law”. fundamental rights of Jorge Glas.”
Vera requested unlimited in-person contact for Glas with his lawyers.
Glas was thrown to the ground and hit in several places during the raid, Vera said at a news conference Monday.
Left-wing leader Glas, vice-president from 2013 to 2017, was first sentenced to six years for accepting bribes from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in exchange for state contracts.
He was convicted again in 2020 of using contractor money to finance campaigns for President Rafael Correa’s political movement and sentenced to eight years.
Glas, who served more than four years in prison before being released in 2022, has long maintained that the charges are politically motivated, a charge that prosecutors have denied.
He is now accused of misusing funds raised to help rebuild the coastal province of Manabi after the devastating 2016 earthquake.
In a letter shared on the social media platform
“I want to express to the Mexican people that I will always be willing to resolve any dispute, but justice is not a subject of negotiation,” he said.
Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena said Monday that the head of Ecuador’s diplomatic mission in her country will not be asked to leave the country, stressing that Mexico wants to calm tensions.
“We will not follow the same recipe,” Barcena said during Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s morning news conference.