(Quito) Former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas is on hunger strike in the high-security prison in Guayaquil, where he was transferred after his arrest at the Mexican embassy in Quito, the former said on Wednesday. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa.
“He ate nothing and went on a hunger strike,” the former socialist leader (2007-2017) declared on X, the day after the return to prison of Mr. Glas, who had been hospitalized on Monday, and whose he is close.
“We have confirmed that the medical emergency (on Monday, Editor’s note) was a suicide attempt,” said Mr. Correa.
Aged 54, Mr. Glas was hospitalized Monday at the naval hospital in Guayaquil, in southwest Ecuador, due to “possible discomfort” after refusing to eat in prison for 24 hours.
“His children and his lawyers were able to contact Jorge Glas by Zoom,” added Rafael Correa.
One of his lawyers, Sonia Vera, assured that Jorge Glas “is on hunger strike” in a message published on social networks.
The intrusion of police into the embassy to arrest Mr. Glas — accused of embezzlement of public funds in Ecuador — caused the breakdown of diplomatic relations between Mexico and Quito and an international outcry.
Mme Vera published a video in which the former vice-president (2013-2017) states that he was “beaten” during his arrest on Friday evening. “I tried to get up, but I couldn’t because of the beatings they gave me,” he said.
He also claimed to have been “tortured, hung by his thumbs” as in a “dictatorship”. “I will not give up,” he stressed.
Mr. Glas, accused of having embezzled public funds intended for the reconstruction of coastal cities after an earthquake in 2016, took refuge in December 2023 in the Mexican embassy in Quito, before receiving political asylum there. .
According to Quito, the political asylum granted by Mexico to Jorge Glas is “illicit”.
Jorge Glas was sentenced in 2017 to eight years in prison for participating in the corruption system of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht and released in 2022 thanks to a legal appeal. He is the subject of an arrest warrant for another case of alleged corruption.