International
Justice of Ecuador revokes the ruling that declared the capture of Glas at the Embassy of Mexico illegal
An appeals court of Ecuador rejected this Friday in second instance the habeas corpus appeal that requested the immediate release of Jorge Glas, former vice president of Rafael Correa, and revoked the original ruling that described his detention within the Mexican Embassy in Quito, when the Government of this country had granted him asylum, as illegal and arbitrary.
The Specialized Administrative Litigation Chamber of the National Court of Justice agreed that Glas’s arrest, which occurred on April 5 in a police invasion of Mexico’s diplomatic headquarters condemned almost unanimously by the international community, was “legal, legitimate and not arbitrary,” according to Glas’s lawyers.
The court of first instance that reviewed the habeas corpus presented in favor of Glas had initially determined that the detention was illegal and arbitrary because the protocol of raids on foreign diplomatic delegations in Ecuador had not been respected, but kept Glas in prison pending the end of serving an eight-year prison sentence for two convictions (corruption and illicit association) in cases of corruption.
The sentence accepted the Government’s arguments, which say that the entry without permission at the Mexican Embassy in Quito sought to prevent the escape of a defendant on whom an arrest warrant weighed and who still had convictions in force.
The habeas corpus, promoted by lawyer Francisco Hidalgo, requested the Ecuadorian Justice to order the release of Glas and deliver him to Mexico or a third country willing to respect the asylum given to him by the Mexican Executive.
Glas, who rejects the charges against him and declares himself a politically persecuted, had arrived at Mexico’s diplomatic headquarters on December 17, 2023 to apply for asylum, when the Prosecutor’s Office was preparing to prosecute him for alleged embezzlement (embezzlement of public funds) in the reconstruction works after the devastating earthquake of 2016.
The Government of Mexico granted asylum to Glas in the midst of a crisis with Ecuador, whose president, Daniel Noboa, had expelled ambassador Raquel Serur after the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, related in statements the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio with Noboa’s electoral triumph.
After his capture, Glas was imprisoned in La Roca, the maximum security prison in Ecuador that is part of the Guayaquil penitentiary complex, a set of five prisons that since June 1 has suspended the food service by the supplier company.
The new sentence issued this Friday ordered the National Service of Comprehensive Care to Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI), the state penitentiary agency, to guarantee and teate the rights of Glas, “especially the right to life, health and integrity, in consideration of the current prison context.”
Glas, who also has German citizenship, was one of the strong men of the Correa Government (2007-2017), and between 2013 and 2017 he held the position of vice president, as well as during the first months of Lenín Moreno’s mandate (2017-2021), until investigations began against him.
“They never notified the composition of the court of appeal, they never made known. They didn’t even deign to mention who presented the amicus curiae,” lamented the former president.
Among the amicus curiae who had joined the appeal to provide arguments in favor of Glas’s petition were the Puebla Group, the Lawfare Observatory, the Argentine jurist Eugenio Zaffaroni and the former ambassador of Bolivia to the UN Sacha Llorenti.
“Everyone knows and has seen that it was done by pulverizing international law and Ecuadorian law. We will not stop denouncing this case until we reach his freedom,” Sacha Llorenti said on social network X this Friday.
Mexico and Ecuador have counterclaimed before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for the events that occurred on April 5, with mutual accusations of having transgressed international conventions and standards.
International
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
International
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
International
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
Defense Minister commends salvadoran soldier for Central American Cross Country victory
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