(Bloomberg) — Former Ecuador Vice President Jorge Glas, who days ago was forcibly removed from the Mexican Embassy, is under observation at a Guayaquil naval hospital and expected to be returned to his prison cell within hours, the nation’s prison service said Monday.
Glas “is currently stable and will remain under observation during the next hours before being returned” to the Pacific port city’s high-security La Roca penitentiary.
Earlier Monday he had been taken to the hospital from La Roca after he failed to respond during the morning inmate count. Medical personnel suspect he fainted after refusing to eat for 24 hours, according to the statement.
Earlier, local news outlet Primicias and others reported he was in a coma after taking a combination of antidepression and antianxiety medication and sedatives, citing a police report.
Glas had fled to Mexico’s Embassy in December after prosecutors alleged a drug dealer had bribed a judge to gain his early release from an eight-year graft sentence, one of several criminal accusations against him. Mexico granted him asylum April 5, hours before Ecuadorian police stormed the neo-colonial villa housing the embassy in north-central Quito.
The raid set off a diplomatic dispute between Ecuador and Mexico and drew condemnation from the US and several Latin American neighbors.
Glas served as vice president under Rafael Correa from 2013 to 2017 and again became vice president under his successor, Lenin Moreno, but was impeached and jailed under corruption charges early in Moreno’s administration.
While Ecuador has received criticism for violating the sanctity of the embassy, “I have made exceptional decisions to protect national security, the rule of law and the dignity of a people that rejects any type of immunity,” President Daniel Noboa said Monday in a letter posted on social media.
“To the fraternal people of Mexico I want to say that I will always be willing to resolve any difference, but justice is non-negotiable,” he added.
(Updates headline, first through fourth paragraphs to reflect Glas’s condition, prison service comment)
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