The Specialized Judicial Unit for Penitentiary Guarantees based in Guayaquil heard the testimony of the former vice president, who announced his delicate state of health since he was kidnapped during the raid on the Mexican Embassy in Quito, on April 5.
Glas warned that he has kidney and joint problems and reported that he found rodent feces on his bed and that they have bitten him on his legs several times.
The former Ecuadorian vice president also stated that he has not been allowed to have contact with his lawyers, both nationally and internationally.
For his part, the former vice president’s lawyer, Andrés Villegas, gave two options for his client to be treated, the first is that he be transferred to a health home and the other is that he be granted house arrest in his mother’s house.
The judge stated that he will reconvene as soon as possible to reinstate the hearing to resolve the habeas corpus.
This Tuesday, the judge of the Penitentiary Guarantees Unit of Guayaquil, Patricio Vidal, accepted the habeas corpus action in favor of Glas, who remains detained in the maximum security prison, La Roca in this South American nation.
The request was presented by lawyer Karen Begonia Gómez with the purpose of getting Glas out of that maximum security penitentiary and transferred to his mother’s house.
According to the lawsuit, Glas’ physical and mental integrity, since his incarceration on April 6, “has been gradually deteriorating.”
Lawyer Gómez warned that on April 8, the former official “tried to commit suicide” and there is a high risk that he will make another attempt on his life.
Additionally, the document detailed that “Glas suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, which is a form of chronic and incurable osteoarthritis, a disease that requires specialized medical care and rehabilitation treatment that prison cannot solve.”
This Monday, several social organizations here gathered outside the National Court of Justice to demand the release of the former vice president.
The coordinator of the National Committee October 2: truth, justice and solidarity, Rosa Pacheco, explained to Prensa Latina that after exhausting, from a legal point of view in Ecuador, all the possibilities for Glas, they have called for this type of sit-ins to hold international pressure.
Pacheco revealed that with that sit-in they began a global crusade in defense of life and for the freedom of Glas. The goal, she said, is to reach some agreement that would allow Glas’s release and the granting of the political asylum that Mexico had given him at the time of his arrest.
The former vice-governor, considered one of the symbols of judicial persecution or “lawfare” in Ecuador, temporarily received the benefit of pre-release on November 28, 2022, after the unification of two prison sentences of six and eight years for the Odebrecht and Bribery cases; however, the measure was revoked.
At the beginning of this year, the justice system ordered his arrest for alleged embezzlement in the case called Reconstruction of Manabí, which investigates alleged embezzlement in public works after the 2016 earthquake.
He was at the Mexican embassy in Quito from December 2023 until April 5 of this year, the day when uniformed officers raided the diplomatic legation to capture him by order of President Daniel Noboa.
ef/ro/nta
