QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Authorities in Ecuador on Friday arrested and re-imprisoned former vice-president Jorge Glas, after a court ordered he must serve out the rest of a corruption sentence.
Glas, 52, “was admitted” to prison in the central province of Cotopaxi, “but for security reasons and in accordance with the regulations in force, he will be transferred to prison 4” in Quito, the country’s interior ministry said in a tweet.
Earlier, police arrested Glas at his home in the port city of Guayaquil, according to videos posted on social media.
He did not resist arrest.
“I am going back to jail with a lot of pain for my family but as part of my personal struggle and of a political project that is living history,” said Glas, who served as vice-president from 2013 to 2017.
The arrest came after a court in the southwestern province of Santa Elena struck down a lower court’s ruling releasing Glas from jail for health reasons.
Glas, while serving a six-year sentence for receiving millions of dollars in kickbacks from the construction giant Odebrecht, was sentenced in January last year to a separate eight-year term for misuse of public funds.
© Agence France-Presse