Police guard outside the Mexican embassy in Quito on April 8, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP
Mexico’s President said Monday that the Ecuadoran government’s raid on his country’s embassy in Quito was likely due to inexperience, bad advice and a desire for domestic political support.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called Friday’s operation a “truly authoritarian” action by his Ecuadoran counterpart Daniel Noboa, 36, who took office in November.
“When there are weak governments that do not have popular support or capacity… those who do not have experience come” to power, Mr. Lopez Obrador said at his regular morning news conference.
But “politics is a noble profession,” and when you lack experience or popular support, “you must act with prudence, balancing passion and reason,” he added.
Ecuador sent its security forces into the embassy to arrest Jorge Glas, a former Vice President wanted for corruption who was sheltering inside, triggering a wave of international criticism.
Mexico quickly broke off diplomatic relations with the South American nation.
Mr. Noboa said Monday that he was willing to “resolve any difference” with Mexico, but defended the embassy raid as necessary to detain Mr. Glas because he posed a flight risk.
“We could not allow sentenced criminals involved in very serious crimes to be given asylum,” Mr. Noboa said in a statement.
Mr. Glas’s lawyer, Sonia Vera, told AFP that her client was “kidnapped” during the operations and called for his asylum status to be respected.
The 54-year-old took shelter at the Mexican embassy last December during a corruption investigation against him. An arrest warrant in that case was issued in January.
He had already served a prison sentence for graft in another case involving the scandal-hit Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.
Late Friday, Ecuadoran special forces equipped with a battering ram surrounded the embassy, and at least one agent scaled the walls, in an almost unheard-of raid on diplomatic premises, which are considered inviolable sovereign territory.
Condemnation poured in from regional governments across the political spectrum, including Nicaragua, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Peru and Venezuela.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “alarmed” by the raid, while the European Union condemned it as a violation of the Vienna Convention.
Mexico, which had granted Mr. Glas asylum just hours before the raid, said it was preparing to file a complaint at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.