Ecuador: Jorge Glas Back to Prison from Hospital

On hunger strike since Oct. 22 to protest his transfer to the maximum security prison outside of Quito, Glas was transferred early Tuesday to Wednesday to the hospital

Doctors at the Carlos Andrade Marín Hospital in the Ecuadorean capital Quito released former Vice President of Ecuador, Jorge Glas, who was transferred back to the maximum security prison Latacunga prison last night.

This was confirmed to EFE sources of the defense group of the former vice president, who has remained in the Quito medical center for 24 hours after health complications 16 days after he went on hunger strike to protest the government’s controversial decision to move him from a Quito prison to the maximum security facility.

“They moved him around 1:30 in the morning,” the sources said, distributing videos of the departure of the hospital convoy, in which some of his followers were protesting returning him to the prison. “Jorge, friend, the people are with you,” the protesters repeated at the entrance of the medical center.

On hunger strike since Oct. 22 to protest his transfer to the maximum security prison outside of Quito, Glas was transferred early Tuesday to Wednesday to the hospital.

The medical center reported yesterday in a press conference that the former vice president was “awake, conscious, oriented, without any signs of mental neurological deterioration, stable in his vital signs”.

After the former top official began his hunger strike, his lawyer Eduardo Franco Loor had said we inform “the country and the international community that the former vice-president @jorgeglas is in deplorable, subhuman conditions, which is why he had declared himself on hunger strike. We hold the authorities responsible for his physical security and for his life,” Franco Loor said on his Twitter account.

Glas was in Prison 4, Quito before he was transferred to the maximum security prison, a measure that the government said was precautionary after former Secretary of Communication Fernando Alvarado escaped his house arrest.

Legislative Paola Cabezas wrote that Glas’ life is in danger as the hunger strike is deteriorating his health rapidly. Evo Morales called on the international community to protect his life and human rights.

Last month Glas completed one year in prison out of his six-year sentence over the controversial case of an illicit association related to the far-reaching corruption scandal linked to the Brazilian company Odebrecht.