QUITO - Ecuadorian police officers entered the Mexican Embassy in Quito, Ecuador, on Friday night to arrest Ecuador’s former vice president, who had taken refuge there, prompting Mexico to suspend bilateral relations.
Jorge Glas, the former vice president, had been sentenced to prison and there was a warrant out for his arrest before Mexico granted him asylum, Ecuador’s presidential office said in a statement announcing the arrest. Glas had lived at the embassy since December and was granted political asylum earlier Friday.
The statement said that "no criminal can be considered politically persecuted."
The statement, from the office of President Daniel Noboa, added that the arrest had gone forward because Mexico had abused the immunities and privileges granted to the diplomatic mission and that Glas' asylum was given "contrary to the conventional legal framework."
Ecuadorean Vice President Jorge Glas reacts as he arrives to court, to attend his trial on bribery from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, in Quito, Ecuador, on Dec 13, 2017. (File photo: Reuters)
Shortly after the arrest, Mexico's president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, issued a statement saying that the arrest was a "flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of Mexico,” and that the Ecuadorian police had entered the embassy forcibly.
Mexico's secretary of foreign affairs, Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, declared the breaking of diplomatic relations with Ecuador in a statement, saying that Mexican diplomatic personnel had suffered injuries in the episode.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.