Colombian Petro Calls Former Ecuadorian Vice President a Political Prisoner.

Over the last week, Ecuador and Colombia have entered a diplomatic impasse triggered by statements from Colombian President Gustavo Petro about Jorge Glas, who served as Ecuador’s vice president from 2013 to 2017.

On April 5, the former Ecuadorian vice president participated in a court hearing to request habeas corpus due to the deplorable conditions of his imprisonment.

“Respectfully, Your Honor, I am fighting in this habeas corpus petition so that I don’t go hungry, because I wake up hungry, I spend the afternoon hungry, and I go to bed hungry,” Glas said.

“And the proof that my hunger is real is that I’ve lost 30 pounds… Your Honor, here are my bones and ribs, all of which you can count like a guitar… Here are the sagging flaps of skin resulting from a weight loss that I’ve never had,” he added.

On Monday, in a comment referring to the information about Glas’s health, Petro described him as a political prisoner, a status the Ecuadorian government rejects.

“I asked that there be no political prisoners in any country in the Americas. It is undeniable that Jorge Glas is a political prisoner,” the Colombian president said, recalling that he asked Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa to release Glas.

“In the Galapagos Islands, I asked the president to release Colombian citizen Jorge Glas or to hand him over to us. That has not been possible, and there should be no political prisoners in the Americas,” Petro emphasized.

Almost immediately, Petro’s comments were answered by President Noboa in a social media post in which he avoided directly referring to Petro or Glas, although he was clearly addressing them.

“This country has waited years to see the corrupt answer to justice. Today, from abroad, they want to sell the story of ‘political prisoners’ to cover up what is obvious: in prison there is a corrupt individual who must answer to Ecuador,” Noboa posted on X.

“Now that they are trying to reinvent the ‘political prisoner,’ I want to be emphatic: this constitutes an attack on our sovereignty and a violation of the principle of nonintervention,” the Ecuadorian president stated.

The text reads, “Sonia Vera, the lawyer for former VP Jorge Glas, warned that her client is in a critical state of malnutrition, which has already been reported by state agents within the PRAS system of the Health Ministry.”

Continuing the exchange via social media, the Colombian president later returned to the issue of Jorge Glas, noting that he holds Colombian nationality.

“Jorge Glas is a Colombian citizen and is a political prisoner. I call on international human rights organizations to safeguard his rights,” Petro said.

“His health condition is already putting his life at risk because, while in prison, he has not been given sufficient food and is already suffering from severe malnutrition and loss of muscle mass.”

“Allowing a person to die of hunger while under the care of a government is a crime against humanity,” the Colombian president stressed.

On Tuesday, Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry sent a note of protest to the Colombian government stating that Glas “is not a politically persecuted individual, but rather someone sentenced by Ecuadorian justice following legitimate proceedings.”

“Any attempt to delegitimize these sentences from abroad constitutes a flagrant violation of the principle of nonintervention, enshrined in international law, particularly in the Charters of the United Nations and the Organization of American States,” Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry added.

On Wednesday, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld withdrew Ecuador’s ambassador to Colombia, Arturo Felix Wong, as a result of Petro’s statements.

“We are making decisions to demonstrate the strong protest that Ecuador is presenting to Colombia over the terms used by President Petro and the interference in decisions of different branches of the Ecuadorian state,” Sommerfeld said.

“Colombia cannot speak out, and even less request assistance from international organizations on this matter, because Ecuador has respected the processes and, above all, is a sovereign country,” she added.

Currently, Jorge Glas is serving an eight-year prison sentence for illicit association and bribery, as well as a second 13-year sentence for embezzlement.

Petro granted Colombian citizenship to Glas in 2025. Previously, however, in April 2024, Ecuadorian security forces entered the Mexican Embassy to detain Glas on the same day the Mexican government granted him diplomatic asylum on the grounds that he was politically persecuted.

At that time, Glas was held at La Roca, Ecuador’s maximum-security prison. He was later transferred to “Encuentro,” a prison for criminal leaders.

teleSUR/ JF

Sources: EFE – El Tiempo – X

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