Quito, Dec 20 (EFE).- Ecuador’s former vice president Jorge Glas (2013-2018), who is a “guest” at the Mexican embassy in Quito, requested diplomatic asylum in Mexico on Wednesday, his lawyer Eduardo Franco Loor confirmed to EFE.
The request was made because Glas believes he is a victim of political persecution and faces “illegal, arbitrary and unconstitutional aggression” from the prosecutor’s office, the lawyer said.
Glas, who was vice-president during part of the Rafael Correa and Lenín Moreno administrations, entered the diplomatic mission last weekend after the prosecutor’s office requested his appearance in the case known as “Reconstruction.”
Franco Loor said that the prosecutor’s office was adopting a stance of “political revenge” as the Correista political movement Citizen Revolution, to which Glas belongs, presented a motion to the National Assembly to impeach the head of the Attorney General’s Office, Diana Salazar.
“Salazar has continued and intensified the political persecution of Jorge Glas in a desire for revenge,” said Franco Loor.
Glas, “in order to protect his physical integrity, his health and his life, since the country’s prisons are apparently not controlled by the state, but by drug traffickers, has decided to request diplomatic asylum on Wednesday, under the 1954 Caracas convention on diplomatic asylum,” he added.
Letter of transit
The lawyer highlighted that they expect the letter of transit to be delivered so that Glas can travel to Mexico since the aforementioned convention states the delivery of such document is “mandatory.”
Likewise, he pointed out that the head of state, Daniel Noboa, “has said that he and his government will not submit to political persecution.”
“He said it during the electoral campaign, and now that he’s in office, let’s hope he keeps his word because Ecuador has always respected international treaties and regulations that govern them,” he said.
Reconstruction case
The former vice president, who served between 2013 and 2017, was imprisoned for a conviction in an illegal association case related to the bribery scandal involving the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
Last August, Glas said he would seek to overturn this conviction after the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil annulled the evidence used against him in the Odebrecht case, a matter that has also affected other politicians from several Latin American countries and other parts of the world.
Franco Loor insisted that his accused is “politically persecuted,” referring to the “Reconstruction” case investigated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Allegations of this case are related to the misuse of public funds in favor of third parties, both natural and legal, who were contractors and auditors of contracts signed in the context of the earthquake emergency on April 16, 2016.
Allegations related to the misuse of public funds
A source in the National Assembly confirmed to EFE that on Thursday this instance will analyze the request provided by Judge Luis Rivera to approve the criminal case against Glas.
In Franco Loor’s opinion, the public prosecutor’s office “has the desire to continue this process of harassment and hatred against Jorge Glas.” EFE
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