Mexico takes Ecuador to ICJ over embassy raid

MEXICO CITY - Mexico said on Thursday it had filed a lawsuit against Ecuador at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague over the storming of its embassy in Quito.

Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena told a press conference that in its lawsuit, Mexico is requesting that Ecuador be suspended from the United Nations unless it issues a public apology “recognising the violations of the fundamental principles and norms of international law.”

Security forces stormed the embassy on Friday night to arrest former Ecuadoran vice president Jorge Glas, who is wanted on corruption charges and had been granted asylum by Mexico.

The rare incursion on inviolable diplomatic territory sparked an international outcry, and led Mexico to break ties with Ecuador, pulling its diplomats out of the country.

At the same press conference, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the goal of the suit was “that this doesn’t repeat itself in any other country in the world, that international law is guaranteed.”

After his capture, Glas, 54, was taken to a maximum security jail in Ecuador’s port city of Guayaquil - notorious for violent prison riots and drug-related gang violence.

His friend and former boss Rafael Correa, who was president between 2007 and 2017, wrote on X Wednesday that Glas “is on a hunger strike.”

Glas was returned to prison on Tuesday after a short hospital stay that officials said was brought on by his refusal to eat for 24 hours.

Glas, who had already served time on corruption charges, was the subject of a fresh arrest warrant for allegedly diverting funds intended for reconstruction efforts after a devastating earthquake in 2016.

The embassy intrusion triggered a political storm. Mexico, several other Latin American states, Spain, the European Union, United States and the UN chief condemned it as a violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations.

A German Foreign Ministry source confirmed that Glas also has German citizenship.

“We are following Mr Glas’s case very closely and are trying to seek direct contact with him through the Ecuadoran authorities,” the source told AFP. –