Daniel Lozano
Updated Monday, April 8, 2024-13:11
América Ecuador defends itself amid international condemnation for the assault on the Mexican embassy
Who is Jorge Glas? Google searches have skyrocketed since Friday night when a commando from the Ecuadorian Security Block attacked the Mexican Embassy in Quito to capture the trusted man of Rafael Correa, leader of the Citizen Revolution and friend since childhood, when Both were boy
scouts
at the Cristóbal Colón School in Guayaquil.
Glas, 54, was not even allowed to celebrate the political asylum granted hours before by the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a close ally of his political boss.
The life of someone who was twice vice president, first with Correa and later with Lenín Moreno, and also twice convicted of corruption, has changed again in the blink of an eye. Since Saturday he has been sleeping in the La Roca prison, a maximum security prison, with another fifty first division prisoners: corrupt politicians, gang leaders, drug traffickers...
"God and History put everyone in their place," Glas recited last year, a phrase that has come back to haunt him like a cruel boomerang. When Rafael Correa suspected his succession at the end of his term, he thought of placing his great friend, heavyweight of the Citizen Revolution and fellow electoral ticket in 2013, minister several times. His lack of charisma and the polls finally opted for Lenín Moreno, who did not hesitate during the campaign to begin to distance himself from both co-religionists, marked by corruption.
The Foreign Minister of Ecuador justifies the arrest of Jorge Glas
Moreno took office in May 2017 and after only three months he decided to release ballast by withdrawing all of his functions from Vice President Glas in the midst of the crossfire of the still all-powerful Correa.
The Prosecutor's Office already had him "signed" and the first sentence was not long in coming: six years in prison for the Odebrecht case
, the Brazilian construction company that has undermined the foundations of democracy on the continent with its million-dollar rain of bribes.
"There are times when good women and men have to pay the consequences," he explained in a letter to his children. In this way, Glas began a stay in prison that would last for five years, during which time he was tried again in the case that was also pursued against Correa for the famous Bribery Case.
The assault against the Comptroller General's Office during the indigenous takeover of Quito failed to destroy the pueblas harvested against both, who received the same sentence: eight years in prison for leading a criminal structure that received money from private contractors in exchange for public awards.
Despite the convictions and the evidence, Glas was included among those "harmed" by the so-called 'judicial lawfare' (judicial persecution), one of the propaganda tools used by leftist, revolutionary and populist leaders in Latin America, later exported to Spain. The staunch defense of his allies from the Puebla Group even went so far as to issue a statement to denounce the implementation of the Metastasis Case, in which the Prosecutor's Office has shown Glas' links with the famous drug trafficker Leandro Norero, who would have bribed to the judge who ordered the release of Correa's former vice president.
Several controversial
habeas corpus
finally managed to return Glas' freedom at the end of 2022, just in time to take charge of his party's presidential campaign, with Luisa González as candidate. The Correístas lost the elections to Daniel Noboa, the same one who decided last Friday's assault.
"Sexual violence"
Between electoral defeats and judicial convictions, Glas has also been involved in a scandal of "sexual violence and psychological harassment", denounced by one of his closest collaborators, Soledad Padilla. A case that also affected Correa.
The woman worked for 16 years near Glas, even visiting him in prison regularly. A relationship that exploded when Padilla informed Glas that his new partner was another Correísta deputy. "I had normalized the mistreatment, the threats, the inappropriate allusions to my personal life, my physical appearance and my relationships. I have also been able to identify the actions of control and submission that Jorge Glas exercised towards me and the constant threat of leaving me without employment," Padilla publicly revealed at the end of last year. Glas counterattacked with a complaint for extortion.
This scandal preceded the new turn of the screw in Glas's life. The Prosecutor's accusations in the Metastasis Case led to an arrest warrant against him and the revocation of his conditional freedom.
Glas decided to flee and took refuge in the Mexican Embassy
, first as a guest and last Friday as an asylum seeker, despite the complaint of the Ecuadorian Government, which considered it an "illicit act." No trace of another phrase, pronounced before TeleSur journalists:
"I prefer to be an innocent prisoner than a coward who is on the run
. "
Glas took to social media on Friday to claim victory ("You can't beat someone who never gives up!"). A few hours later, and in the midst of the diplomatic crisis caused by López Obrador's provocations, the unprecedented action ordered by Noboa, repudiated by the international community, ended his freedom, marked for years by corruption.