Ecuadorean police entered Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest former vice president who had been granted asylum.
Mexico’s leftist government cut diplomatic ties with Ecuador after Ecuadorean police raided its embassy in Quito to arrest a former vice president late Friday, the latest in a widening rift among Latin American leaders.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called the raid a “flagrant violation of international law and Mexican sovereignty,” and ordered a suspension of diplomatic relations.
A heavily armed Ecuadorean police squad forced its way into the embassy in Quito, the Ecuadorean capital, on Friday and arrested the former vice president, Jorge Glas, who had been granted political asylum by Mexico after claiming he was being persecuted politically. Police officers subdued Roberto Canseco, Mexico’s chargé de affaires, as special forces sought out and removed Glas.“They threw me on the floor,” Canseco told reporters after the former vice president was hauled off. “Like criminals, they raided the Mexican embassy in Ecuador. This isn’t possible, this can’t be. It’s crazy.”
On Saturday, Glas was expected to be transferred to a maximum-security prison known as “The Rock” in the coastal city of Guayaquil that has been used to hold violent drug bosses.
“No criminal can be considered to be politically persecuted,” the Ecuadorean government said in a statement Friday, in which it accused Mexico of abusing diplomatic…
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