Mexico is breaking diplomatic ties with Ecuador after police raided its embassy in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas, who had been seeking asylum there. Confirming the move in a statement to CNNE, a foreign ministry spokesperson said all Mexican diplomatic staff would leave Ecuador immediately. Mexico decried the raid as “an outrage against international law.”
Video from the scene showed police officers massing around the embassy, some armed. Embassies are generally considered protected spaces under diplomatic norms. Glas has since been transferred to the Guayas No. 3 Deprivation of Liberation Center, a maximum-security prison in Guayaquil known as La Roca, the national prisons agency SNAI announced Saturday.
A rift between the two Latin American countries had been growing for several days, culminating Friday in Mexico’s decision to grant political asylum to Glas, who served as vice president under leftist ex-President Rafael Correa between 2013 and 2017. Convicted twice on corruption charges, Glas says he is the subject of political persecution and had been sheltering inside the embassy.
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