Mexico’s government severed diplomatic ties with Ecuador after police stormed the Mexican embassy late Friday to arrest a former vice president of Ecuador, an extraordinary use of force that shocked and dismayed regional leaders and diplomats.
Ecuadorian police broke down the outer doors of the embassy in the capital, Quito, to arrest Jorge Glass, who had been living there since December. Glass applied for political asylum at the embassy afterwards accused of corruption.
The raid prompted Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to announce the severance of diplomatic relations with Ecuador on Friday night, while his government’s foreign affairs secretary said the move would be challenged at the World Court in The Hague.
“This is not possible. It cannot. This is crazy,” Roberto Canseco, head of Mexico’s consular section in Quito, told local press while standing outside the embassy immediately after the raid. “I’m very concerned because they could kill him. There’s no basis for that to happen. That’s completely outside the norm.”
On Saturday, Glass was taken in an armored vehicle from the attorney general’s office to an airport, where he boarded a plane for a flight to the port city of Guayaquil, 265 miles (425 kilometers) south of Quito. People gathered outside the prosecutor’s office shouted “force” as the convoy of police and military vehicles drove away.
Ecuador’s corrections service said Glass will remain in custody at a maximum security facility in Guayaquil.
Authorities are investigating Glas for alleged irregularities in the management of rebuilding efforts after strong earthquake in 2016 which killed hundreds of people. It was him convicted of bribery and corruption in other cases.
The office of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa defended the raid in a statement, saying that “Ecuador is a sovereign nation” that will not “allow any criminal to go free.” López Obrador responded, calling Glass’ detention an “authoritarian act” and a “blatant violation of international law and Mexican sovereignty.”
Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s minister of foreign relations, posted on social media platform X that several diplomats were injured in the break-in, adding that it violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Diplomatic facilities are considered “inviolable” under the Vienna Convention, and local law enforcement agencies are not allowed to enter without the ambassador’s permission. Asylum seekers have lived anywhere from days to years living in embassies around the world, including Ecuador in London, where it was housed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for seven years because the British police could not go in to arrest him.
The Ecuadorian authorities’ decision was condemned by presidents, diplomats and a regional body on Saturday.
Honduran President Xiomara Castro, writing in X, called the raid “an unacceptable act for the international community” and “a violation of the sovereignty of the Mexican state and international law” because it “ignores the historic and fundamental right to asylum.”
The Organization of American States in a statement reminded its members, which include Ecuador and Mexico, of their “obligation” not to “invoke the rules of domestic law to justify non-compliance with their international obligations.”
“In this context, (the OAS) expresses its solidarity with those who fell victim to the inappropriate actions that affected the Mexican embassy in Ecuador,” according to the statement issued on Saturday. The organization added that it considered a meeting of its permanent board “necessary to address the issue,” but did not set a date.
Bárcena said Friday that Mexico will refer the case to the International Court of Justice “to denounce Ecuador’s responsibility for violations of international law.” He also said that the Mexican diplomats are only waiting for the Ecuadorian government to offer the necessary guarantees for their return home.
Noboa became Ecuador’s president last year as the nation struggled unprecedented crime linked to drug trafficking. After a group of gunmen attacked a TV station during a live broadcast in January, it declared the country in “internal armed conflict” and set 20 drug trafficking gangs as terrorist groups that the military was authorized to “neutralize” within the limits of international humanitarian law.
Will Freeman, fellow of Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the decision to send police to the Mexican embassy raises concerns about the steps Noboa is willing to take to seek re-election. His term ends in 2025 as he was elected only to complete the term of former president Guillermo Lasso.
“I really hope Noboa doesn’t veer more in Bukele’s direction,” Freeman said, referring to El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, whose tough on crime policies have been heavily criticized by human rights organizations. “This means less respect for the rule of law in order to boost his popularity before the elections.”
Freeman added that whether Glass abused diplomatic protection was a “separate issue” from the decision to send police to the embassy.
“We see a pattern of this in Latin America with politicians abusing embassies and foreign jurisdictions, not to escape prosecution but to avoid responsibility,” he said.
Ecuador’s foreign and interior ministries did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Former Ecuadorian ambassador Jorge Icaza told the AP that the raid was illegal, but added that it was also against the law to protect “a criminal who was punished by the Ecuadorian justice system in two high-profile cases, which is also negative from the point of view of international norms”.
The Mexican embassy in Quito remained under heavy police guard after the raid – the flashpoint of recent tensions between Mexico and Ecuador.
On Thursday, tensions escalated after statements made by López Obrador that Ecuador considered “very unfortunate”. last year’s election. In response, the government of Ecuador declared the Mexican ambassador persona non grata.