Ecuador Court Rules Mexican Embassy Arrest Legal, Comercio Says

(Bloomberg) -- Ecuador’s high court ruled that former Vice President Jorge Glas’s arrest in Mexico’s embassy in Quito was legal, in a case that has strained relations between the two countries.

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The high court overturned a lower-court ruling late Friday, declaring the arrest “legal, legitimate and not arbitrary,” El Comercio reported. The court previously ruled out an appeal by Glas to be freed from prison immediately.

Glas was forcibly removed by security officials from the Mexican Embassy on April 5, hours after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s government granted him asylum. He fled to the embassy in December after Ecuadorian prosecutors implicated him in an alleged bribery case. Glas has said he’s a victim of political persecution.

The raid set off a diplomatic dispute between Ecuador and Mexico and drew condemnation from the US and several Latin American neighbors.

Glas is being held at the high-security Roca penitentiary in Guayaquil.

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