Ecuador: Former VP Jorge Glas’ Lawyers to Go to International Courts
On Friday, a Supreme Court tribunal denied that his detention inside the Mexican embassy was illegal and arbitrary.
On Monday, the legal team of former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas announced that they will appeal to the Inter-American justice system to achieve his release after Ecuadorian Justice rejected his request for release in two instances and endorsed his detention during the police raid on the Mexican Embassy in Quito.
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“After exhausting the ordinary national route, we will present a contentious request in the Inter-American System to address the kidnapping of Jorge Glas,” said the Belgian law firm Juscogens, coordinated by Christophe Marchand and Sonia Vera.
The defenders recalled that there are also other ongoing actions for Glas to regain his freedom, including an extension of precautionary and provisional measures before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR Court).
The lawyers also intensified their petitions before the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to officially declare his detention arbitrary. Additionally, there is a request for a safe-conduct under the Caracas Convention to guarantee his safe exit from Ecuador with diplomatic asylum in Mexico.
Glas’s lawyers also indicated that there is a complaint filed in Mexico for aggravated kidnapping and torture and another complaint filed in Germany, as the former vice president also holds German nationality.
On Friday, a tribunal of the National Justice Court not only validated Glas’s continued imprisonment but also revoked the consideration that his detention had been illegal and arbitrary. The judges justified this decision by arguing that his detention occurred when a “State of Exception” was in effect, during which the fundamental right to the inviolability of the home was suspended.
“The tribunal made a mistake by applying a State of Exception as justification, ignoring international precedents that explicitly protect the sovereignty of diplomatic missions, even in emergency situations. The judgment critically omits Jorge Glas’s status as a diplomatic asylum seeker, a fact officially recognized and communicated by Mexico,” the defense attorneys said.
“It represents a serious violation of international norms and human rights that protect people with asylum status, highlighting the lack of impartiality and the injustice of the judicial process, thus evidencing a worrying deviation from the principles of justice and fairness,” they added.
Jorge Glas, who denies the charges against him and declares himself a political persecuted, had entered the Mexican diplomatic headquarters on December 17, 2023. After his detention, Glas was confined in La Roca, Ecuador’s maximum-security prison, which is part of the Guayaquil penitentiary complex, a set of five prisons that has had its food service suspended by the provider company since June 1.
Source: EFE
teleSUR/ JF
