Ecuadorian police storm Mexican Embassy to arrest former vice president

Mexico has seemingly broken diplomatic ties with Ecuador after police stormed the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas.

Glas served as vice president from 2013 to 2017 and was subsequently charged with bribery and corruption at the end of his term. He decided to take refuge in the Mexican Embassy and had been there since December 2023. Ecuadorian law enforcement broke into the embassy Friday night, took him into custody, and transported him some 265 miles south to Guayaquil on Saturday.

The sudden takeover stunned Roberto Canseco, the head of the Mexican Consulate, who spoke to press outside of the damaged embassy following the raid. Mexico granted Glas asylum hours before he was taken.

“This is not possible,” Canseco said. “It cannot be. This is crazy. I am very worried because they could kill him. There is no basis to do this. This is totally outside the norm.”

In response, Mexico called off its diplomatic ties with Ecuador, citing that embassy staff members were injured during the raid.

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The raid was a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which allows for embassies to grant asylum to foreigners even if they have criminal convictions. It has been in place since 1963 and banned forced entry into embassies.

Ecuador protected WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from British law enforcement for seven years after granting him asylum. Eventually, then-President Lenin Moreno revoked his asylum and allowed British officers to enter its embassy and arrest him. Moreno also went on to revoke Assange’s Ecuadorian citizenship.