Glas' defense appeals for his release in Ecuador

Quito, May 8.- The defense of the former vice president of Ecuador Jorge Glas announced that he went to the United Nations (UN) to resolve the situation of the former vice president, imprisoned since the assault on the Mexican embassy, ??where he was seeking asylum.

Lawyer Aitor Martínez explained that they asked the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention for actions to demand the Ecuadorian government for the corresponding safe passage so that Glas can go to Mexican territory and thus continue his political asylum process.

We have insisted on the need for the Working Group to activate the emergency procedure, and that in the short term there may be some statement from the United Nations in relation to the situation of arbitrary detention, Martínez noted.

He stated that the politician, a member of the Citizen Revolution movement, was the victim of a kidnapping and very serious mistreatment at the time of his arrest on April 5 at the Mexican embassy in Quito.

In the request to the UN, the jurists referred to how a court of the National Court of Justice declared the capture illegal and arbitrary, although it decided to keep him in prison.

The defense also asked the UN Group for a delegation to visit the former official in the La Roca maximum security prison, in Guayaquil.

In this regard, lawyer Sonia Vera, part of the international defense, reported that the former vice president continues on a hunger strike and denounced that his medications have not been supplied.

Additionally, lawyers are concerned about the former vice president's very limited communication within La Roca, which would prevent him from having private conversations with his legal team.

In turn, Glas' legal representatives also initiated actions in Mexico and Germany, since it also has citizenship in the European country.

At the national level, this Tuesday, his lawyers presented an appeal of the habeas corpus measure to insist on his release.

Intellectuals, artists and politicians from several countries asked Ecuador to release the former official, who had been judicially and politically persecuted for seven years and who was in asylum at the diplomatic headquarters, states a letter with 161 signatures released over the weekend.

For its part, the government of President Daniel Noboa justifies the violent invasion of the Embassy to apprehend Glas and, despite international condemnation of the event, they accuse Mexico of granting illicit political asylum. (Text and photo: PL)