QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuador’s former vice president Jorge Glas is on a hunger strike at a prison in Guayaquil to protest his arrest, his lawyer Sonia Vera said in a message posted on X on Wednesday.
Glas, already twice convicted of corruption and now facing fresh charges, was arrested on Friday after a raid by police on Mexico’s Quito embassy, where he had been living since December.
“We have finally made contact with Jorge, who is on hunger strike,” Vera wrote on X in a message that also included a video of Glas recounting his arrest last week.
The arrest capped a week of growing tensions between Mexico and Ecuador, after Quito declared the Mexican ambassador persona non grata, citing “unfortunate” comments by leftist Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Ecuador’s government has said that it has evidence that Glas was planning to escape, though it has not provided details.
Glas was taken to hospital on Monday after the prison service said he refused to eat food provided in jail and became ill.
He was discharged on Tuesday and returned to prison.
Video clips from inside the embassy broadcast during Lopez Obrador’s daily press conference on Tuesday showed a door violently forced open as well as a man, who appeared to be Glas, being carried out, his arms and legs hoisted up by police or soldiers.
In the video shared by his lawyer, Glas accused police of abusing him during the arrest in Quito.
“I tried to stand up but I couldn’t because of the beating they had given me,” Glas said in the video.
