The 54-year-old Glas, who has been found guilty of corruption twice, had been locked up in the Quito embassy since December, when he requested political asylum, which Mexico had earlier on Friday granted.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wrote on X that police had to break into Mexico’s embassy in Quito with force before they could make the arrest.
Glas served as vice president of Rafael Correa’s Marxist government from 2013 to 2017, and the president’s office of Ecuador said in a statement that Glas had been arrested.
Glas’s international lawyer, Sonia Vera, stated over the phone that his team was putting in requests for assistance on an inter-American level with the UN Security Council, General Assembly, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Court of Human Rights.
The former vice president was escorted to the judges court in the city of Andes, where there was a strong military presence.
The arrest brings an end to a week of growing hostilities between Ecuador and Mexico. On Thursday, Ecuador proclaimed Mexico’s ambassador persona non grata in Quito, citing the leftist President Lopez Obrador’s “unfortunate” remarks.
Ecuador claims that Mexico was not authorized to give asylum.
“Having abused the immunities and privileges granted to the diplomatic mission that housed the former vice president, and granting diplomatic asylum contrary to the conventional legal framework,” the presidency of Ecuador charged in a statement.
Calling the arrest a “authoritarian” act that violated both Mexican sovereignty and international law, Lopez Obrador announced that he had given the order to Alicia Barcena, the foreign minister of Mexico, to sever diplomatic ties with Ecuador.
Shortly afterward on X, Barcena declared the “immediate” suspension of diplomatic relations with the South American country, later adding that embassy workers will return to Mexico.
Authorities in Ecuador had requested authorization from Mexico to enter the embassy and take Glas into custody. Glas was found guilty in 2017 of receiving bribes from Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht in exchange for awarding it government contracts.
Glas claims he is being punished because of his political affiliation, a claim the Ecuadorian government disputes, and he now has a preventive arrest order out for him in connection with another corruption investigation.
Lopez Obrador’s remarks this week on the violent elections that occurred in Ecuador last year—which included the assassination of a presidential candidate—infuriated Ecuadorean officials.
After taking office late last year, Daniel Noboa, the president of Ecuador, was forced to proclaim a national state of emergency early this year, which he then prolonged last month due to the country’s growing drug gang war.
