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Ecuadorian police raided the Mexican embassy in Quito on Friday and arrested former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas, who is under investigation for corruption, extortion and other crimes. Glas had recently received political asylum from Mexico and had taken refuge inside the embassy, which as a diplomatic headquarters is formally part of Mexican territory and not Ecuadorian territory. The operation with which the police raided the embassy was daring, and is a decidedly unusual act: international law provides almost absolute protection for embassies from the interventions of the countries that host them.
Glas’ arrest was therefore seen by Mexico as a violation of its territorial sovereignty, and for this reason the Mexican government reacted very harshly: President Andrés Manuel López Obrador defined Glas’ arrest as an «authoritarian act» and « a clear violation of international law and the sovereignty of Mexico.” López Obrador then announced that he will sever diplomatic relations with Ecuador.
Ecuadorian police at the entrance to the Mexican embassy (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)
Relations between the two countries were already bad: the day before Glas’ arrest the government of Ecuador had declared the Mexican ambassador Raquel Serur “persona non grata” (the phrase is Latin, literally “persona non grata”) after some comments by López Obrador regarding the latest elections in Ecuador, won by the centrist president Daniel Noboa.
Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s foreign minister, said that some diplomats were injured in the operation that arrested Glas. According to several international law experts, by raiding the embassy Ecuador violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relationsa 1961 treaty governing certain aspects of relations between states and the status of ambassadors and diplomatic officials.
Glas, che Associated Press he defined «probably the most wanted man in Ecuador», he had been vice president of the country between 2013 and 2017, during the left-wing government of Rafael Correa. He had already received a conviction in 2017, again for corruption, and another arrest warrant was issued against him with new charges.
The Ecuadorian authorities had asked Mexico for permission to enter the embassy to arrest him, then deciding to raid after Mexico’s decision to grant him political asylum. In a statement released on Friday, the presidency of Ecuador said that “Ecuador is a sovereign nation and we will not allow any criminal to remain free.”