It had all the makings of a bust by cartels. Jorge Glas was taken into custody by Ecuadorean police on April 5th when they arrived in armored trucks wearing balaclavas and wielding riot shields. However, Mr. Glas is not a gang boss; rather, he served as Ecuador’s vice president. In December, he sought asylum at the Mexican consulate in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, to avoid being detained on corruption-related allegations. Ecuador nevertheless stormed in and captured him.
Mexico summoned its ambassadors and denounced the arrest as a “authoritarian act.” Ecuador’s transgression of diplomatic protocol occurs at a moment when pressure is mounting to maintain the inviolability of embassy structures. Following a possible Israeli airstrike, the Iranian government informed Israel several days prior to the raid that its embassies were “no longer safe.”strike destroyed an Iranian consular building in Damascus, Syria’s capital. What protections are afforded to diplomatic premises and why do they matter?
