FILE PHOTO: Ecuador’s Vice President Jorge Glas speaks during an interview at his office in Quito, Ecuador, Sept. 12, 2017. Ecuadorian police broke through the external doors of the Mexican Embassy in Quito, Friday, April 6, 2024, to arrest Glas, who had been residing there since December. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa, File)
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador — Ecuador’s ex-vice president Jorge Glas, arrested when police stormed Mexico’s embassy in Quito, has been hospitalized after refusing to eat prison food, the prison authority said Monday.
Glas, 54, was in stable condition at a naval hospital in Guayaquil, the SNAI authority said in a statement, and will be kept under observation “in the coming hours” until he is returned to jail.
Ecuador carried out a raid on the embassy Friday to capture Glas, who sought refuge there last December pending a corruption investigation against him.
Mexico had granted him political refugee status just hours before.
READ: Int’l leaders condemn Ecuador after cops break into Mexican Embassy
Earlier Monday, a Brussels-based lawyer for Glas told AFP she feared for his life and pleaded for international help.
“I believe that Jorge Glas is at grave risk, at imminent risk, in the hands of the (Ecuadoran) government. It was a kidnapping, and I believe at any moment they could kill him,” Sonia Vera said.
The SNAI statement said Glas had not responded during a roll-call at Guayas prison Monday.
READ: Ecuador raid a blow to Mexico’s ‘sacred’ asylum tradition
He appeared to have fallen ill after refusing to eat for 24 hours, it added, and was taken to hospital.
Ecuador’s embassy intrusion has triggered a political storm, with Mexico, several other Latin American states, Spain, the European Union and the UN chief condemning it as a violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention governing international relations.
Mexico, which cut off diplomatic relations and pulled its diplomatic personnel out of Ecuador, said it was filing a complaint at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.