Ecuador’s former vice president Jorge Glas has been hospitalized, days after his arrest during a high-profile raid of the Mexican embassy in Quito.
The-54-year-old was taken to a hospital in Guayaquil after falling ill, the country’s national prison agency SNAI said Monday. He became ill after he refused to eat food provided to him while in detention, the agency also said.
Paramedics with the Ministry of Public Health transferred Glas to the Naval Hospital of Guayaquil, where he was admitted at approximately 12:45 p.m.
SNAI said Glas was in a stable condition and would be under observation for the next few hours before being returned to prison.
The news came as Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa on Monday defended the controversial police raid on Friday that led to Glas’s arrest.
Glas, who has been accused by Ecuadorian authorities of embezzling government funds meant to help rebuild after a devastating 2016 earthquake, was seeking asylum at the embassy when the raid took place. He was subsequently transferred to the maximum security La Roca prison in Guayaquil.
His defense has rejected the allegations against him and he says he is the subject of political persecution. Glas, who has previously been convicted twice on corruption charges, served under leftist ex-President Rafael Correa between 2013 and 2017.
Mexico reacted to the raid with fury, condemning it as a “flagrant violation of international law” and its sovereignty and has filed a case against Ecuador at the International Court of Justice. It has also broken off diplomatic ties with Ecuador.
