Former vice president of Ecuador hospitalized amid diplomatic tension with Mexico

First modification: 04/09/2024 – 11:04

2 min

With Eric Samson, RFI's Quito correspondent

Jorge Glas was found lying in his bed this Monday by the guards at La Roca prison in Guayaquil. As he looked clearly unwell, he was immediately transferred to a nearby medical center surrounded by tight security measures. After being evaluated, the authorities took him to a naval hospital where “alleged drug intoxication” was detected.

Glas, 54, “suffered a possible decompensation due to his refusal to consume the food provided” in prison, the prison service (SNAI) said in a statement.

Without saying the word “suicide,” the police report speaks of a “diagnosis of deep coma induced by the intake of anxiolytic, antidepressant and sedative medications.” These medications were authorized and entered the prison without problem.

After some tests in neurology, internal medicine and an electrocardiogram, Jorge Glass's health stabilized. His lawyers confirmed that he has been transferred back to his cell in La Roca.

“When I was vice president, my health was quite fragile with all these damages and especially in recent times it will be much more deteriorated with more precarious health. The events have been quite hard, especially for him,” he recalls. RFI Franklin Ramírez, from the Latin American Faculty of Social Studies.

“There were already images on Saturday of boarding a plane to take him from Quito to Guayaquil and it was seen that he was limping, unable to climb the steps of the plane with which they took him, like a certain major deterioration that we had not heard about. I have never been so sure about the issue of a suicide attempt, now apparently that is not the case either. It is known that he takes antidepressants, anxiolytics, as well as other medicines for a problem he has in his spine or leg. So, he is exposed to a pharmacological arsenal and of course, many people like that would be totally understandable, but it seems that there is no way to confirm that news yet.

For the moment, his new foreign lawyers claim to have not been able to contact their client, which is why they consider him “kidnapped by the Ecuadorian government.”

For his part, former president Rafael Correa affirms that Glas has been mistreated during his detention in the Mexican embassy and his transfer to Guayaquil. President Noboa, for his part, affirms that he gave the order to intervene in the embassy because there was an imminent risk of Jorge Glas fleeing.

Glas, who was vice president of former socialist president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), was released from prison in 2022 after serving five of the eight years he received in two corruption trials, one of them alongside Correa, who is a fugitive in Belgium.

Ecuador considers that Glas's asylum is “illegal” and that it contravenes international standards, since he is being prosecuted for a common crime.

The Ecuadorian president, Daniel Noboa, spoke for the first time on the issue this Monday and defended his decision to break into the Mexican legation, arguing that he could not run “the risk of an imminent escape.”

“To the brother people of Mexico I want to express that I will always be willing to resolve any difference, but that justice is not negotiated