The former vice president of Ecuador, Jorge Glas, began a hunger strike on Wednesday (10) in a maximum security prison in Guayaquil, where he has been detained since Saturday, a member of his team told CNN .
“He’s in a hole, with no light,” said the source.
On Monday, Glas was hospitalized after refusing to eat food provided to him in prison, Ecuador's national prison agency, SNAI, said. He returned to prison on Tuesday after being released from the hospital.
Glas was arrested for the first time on Saturday, a day after Ecuadorian police arrested him in a controversial raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito, where he was seeking political asylum after being accused of corruption by Ecuadorian prosecutors.
Glas rejected the accusations.
On Sunday, his lawyers filed a habeas corpus appeal, a legal principle that allows people who believe they are detained or detained illegally to challenge it. Successful appeals can lead to a detainee's release.
SNAI told CNN on Wednesday that Glas will have a hearing on the habeas corpus appeal this Thursday.
The agency did not comment on the hunger strike.
The consequences of the attack on the embassy grow
News of the hunger strike comes as the political fallout surrounding the embassy attack continues to grow.
A number of Latin American countries rallied around Mexico, which condemned the attack as a “flagrant violation of international law” and opened a case against Ecuador at the International Court of Justice, in addition to severing diplomatic relations.
On Wednesday, the Organization of American States (OAS) approved a resolution condemning Ecuador's actions in the attack on the embassy.
Twenty-nine countries voted in favor of the resolution, while Ecuador voted against, a video of the meeting on the OAS YouTube account showed.
Mexico was absent from the vote, as was Venezuela. El Salvador was the only country to abstain.
The meeting, called at the request of Bolivia and Colombia, saw Colombia present a draft resolution titled “Intrusion by Ecuadorian police into the Embassy of Mexico, in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Institution of Diplomatic Asylum.”
The resolution “strongly condemned” the attack on the Mexican embassy and the “acts of violence against the well-being and dignity of the mission’s diplomatic personnel,” according to a copy obtained by CNN .
The resolution also called on member states to respect the “privileges and immunities” of diplomatic missions and fulfill their obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to ensure that the “inviolability of diplomatic premises and personnel is fully respected and defended, without exception.”
Ecuador and Mexico were urged to initiate dialogue and take immediate steps to resolve the issue in accordance with international law, according to the resolution.
Ecuador defends attack
Ecuador's permanent representative to the OAS, Ambassador Mauricio Montalvo Samaniego, defended his country's actions, arguing that it was Mexico who, by granting asylum to Glas, violated the Vienna Convention.
Mexico's actions were illegal because Glas was “accused” and “found guilty” of crimes, he told the meeting, and the operation was necessary given “that a common criminal simply tried to escape.”
Glas was accused by Ecuadorian authorities of embezzling government funds intended to help with reconstruction following a devastating earthquake in 2016.
He has already been convicted twice on corruption charges. His team claims that Glas, who served in the government of former left-wing president Rafael Correa between 2013 and 2017, is being targeted by political persecution.
“It is not lawful to offer asylum to people who, when requesting asylum, find themselves before competent courts accused of common crimes or, even worse, when they have already been convicted, found guilty… without having served their sentence or paid the fines imposed,” said Samaniego .
“Foreign diplomats owe the host country non-interference in their internal relations”, added the ambassador, in reference to the Mexican embassy.
Regarding the meeting's call for dialogue and resolution, he said that “it will not happen until we find a new basis for bilateral relations that respects international law and our own law”.
Source: CNN Brasil
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