Ecuador judge sends former vice-president Jorge Glas to trial
QUITO (Reuters) -A judge in Ecuador on Monday ruled former vice president Jorge Glas will face trial for alleged misuse of public funds allocated to rebuild areas affected by a devastating 2016 earthquake.
Glas is currently in prison serving out convictions in two prior corruption cases.
The attorney general's office had asked that Glas and eight other ex-officials, some of whom are outside the country, face charges in the case.
Prosecutors accuse Glas, who led the reconstruction effort for Manabi and Esmeraldas provinces after the earthquake, of misdirecting funds for non-priority works.
Judge Marco Aguirre said during a public hearing that there were indications that Glas committed embezzlement by using funds intended for reconstruction for other projects that were not related to the reconstruction in Manabi.
The funds were raised through taxes, including an increase in VAT.
The prosecution also claims the funds were misused for the benefit of contractors and supervisors involved in the reconstruction.
Glas, who served as vice president under Rafael Correa from 2013 to 2017, was captured by Ecuadorean authorities following a raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito last year, which led to the severing of diplomatic ties between Ecuador and Mexico.
Glas' lawyer Sonia Vera said in a post on X that the ruling was a sign of "the use of criminal proceedings as a tool of political persecution, in open violation of due process."
She added that there was no evidence of misappropriation of public funds for personal benefit or that of third parties nor harm to the national treasury, both essential requirements to establish the crime of embezzlement.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Newsweek
32 minutes ago
- Newsweek
LA Riots: How Mexican Flag Photos Are a Gift to Donald Trump
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. As violence erupted out of immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles over the weekend, images of protestors waving Mexican flags became a focal point of the coverage and for the Trump administration's reaction. "The riots in Los Angeles prove that we desperately need more immigration enforcement personnel and resources," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X, formerly Twitter, Monday morning, alongside a photo of a protestor waving the Mexican flag. "America must reverse the invasion unleashed by Joe Biden of millions of unvetted illegal aliens into our country." Various iterations of the Mexican flag, at times combined with the U.S. flag, were carried by protestors as some streets in Los Angeles turned violent. Protestors were angry at federal agents raiding immigrant communities amid efforts to ramp up daily arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 'The Greatest Political Gift' A protester holds up a Mexican flag while standing in front of smoke billowing from burning cars on June 8, 2025 in Downtown Los Angeles, California. A protester holds up a Mexican flag while standing in front of smoke billowing from burning cars on June 8, 2025 in Downtown Los Angeles, photos of the flags appeared online, flown amid burning vehicles and law enforcement in riot gear, senior officials within the Trump administration said this proved there had been an "invasion" by illegal immigrants, particularly over the past four years under former President Joe Biden, and that it was necessary to send in the National Guard and deport those in the country without legal status. "These idiots waiving Mexican flags during the LA riots just gave Donald Trump the greatest political gift," Republican strategist Matt Wylie, who founded Freedom Project USA, told Newsweek. "It will be 'Exhibit A' as proof of an invasion. Those images have done more in the last few days to strengthen his ability to crackdown on illegal immigration than weeks of messaging ever could." The Trump administration has been trying to ramp up the number of illegal immigrant arrests in recent weeks after a slower-than-anticipated increase in arrests and removals and multiple lawsuits challenging aspects of the president's policies, including the use of the Alien Enemies Act to speed up deportations of alleged gang members. Left: Law enforcement clashes with demonstrators during a protest following federal immigration operations, in the Compton neighborhood of Los Angeles, California on June 7, 2025. Right: A protester waves a Mexican flag while standing on... Left: Law enforcement clashes with demonstrators during a protest following federal immigration operations, in the Compton neighborhood of Los Angeles, California on June 7, 2025. Right: A protester waves a Mexican flag while standing on a vandalized Waymo vehicle in Los Angeles, California, on June 8, 2025. More RINGO CHIU/DAVID PASHAEE/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images While Trump, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and others within the administration have insisted that they are going after the "worst of the worst," Democrats and immigration advocates have said this is not true and that innocent undocumented immigrants are being targeted instead at workplaces and immigration courts, including in L.A. Assistant Professor Julia Mendelsohn, who researches the intersection of language, politics, and computation at the University of Maryland, told Newsweek that the presence of Mexican and Latin American flags during the protests against these actions should not be taken as "a statement on foreign allegiances." "While the presence of these flags does not affect immigration enforcement efforts, it is being strategically weaponized," she said. "Officials are misrepresenting protestors' use of these flags by framing them as symbols of foreign allegiance. "This narrative can serve to delegitimize the protests, justify more punitive enforcement actions, and garner public support for immigration policies that might otherwise be unpopular." More punitive actions were initiated by the Trump administration, with the deployment of National Guard troops to tackle the violence that erupted around the protests over the weekend. Proof Of An Invasion? A protester holds up a joint United States and Mexico flag during protests after a series of immigration raids on June 08, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. A protester holds up a joint United States and Mexico flag during protests after a series of immigration raids on June 08, 2025, in Los Angeles, flags is, of course, not an uncommon sight. In New York City at the weekend, Puerto Rican flags flooded midtown for the city's annual parade celebrating that community. Irish flags are a common sight in March as many celebrate St. Patrick's Day, whether Irish-American or not and flags of other nationalities are proudly flown within neighborhoods dedicated to them in cities across the U.S. Alvaro Huerta, an associate professor with an immigration focus at Cal Poly Pomona, told Newsweek that every person in America has the right to express themselves and their culture. "I'm a big fan, like Trump, of the UFC, and the last time I went to a UFC fight and Conor McGregor was there fighting, and there were thousands of his countrymen from Ireland. So now were they invading?" he said. "The fact that they're white, they're Europeans, to me, I am skeptical because they are not being attacked. Conor McGregor's not being attacked. The Irish are not being attacked." Huerta and Mendelsohn both said that there were contradictions at play and that national flags were simply a way to show solidarity among the immigrant communities being targeted by ICE. "When you have a flag, that's not a threat. They're not the Proud Boys coming armed for an insurrection," Huerta said. "The flag is a cultural expression of who they are. This is a free country and we have that right. If they want to take away that right, just say it's illegal for brown people to wave their flags." The protests were peaceful in parts, but those calmer instances of solidarity with the city's immigrant communities were not the moments captured by photographers and TV crews over the weekend. The photos of protestors carrying those flags amid teargas, flames, and police tactical gear were the ones that lived on. They were still being shared on social media and featured in leading news articles as tensions persisted between the federal government and local leaders. "It will be a political gold mine for Trump that not only allows him to pivot away from the Musk breakup and opposition to the Big Beautiful Bill but allows him to double down on two of his strongest campaign promises: border security and 'law and order,'" Wylie said.
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Mass shooter who opened fire at graduation party is just one of the migrants busted in LA ICE raids: ‘That's who they're protesting for'
Some of the illegal immigrants detained in the ICE-raids that sparked Los Angeles' riots are convicted criminals with rap sheets for sexual assault, gang activity and even murder — including a Vietnamese national convicted of carrying out a mass shooting at a high school graduation party that shocked Southern California. Cuong Chanh Phan, 49, was among dozens of illegal immigrants ICE arrested in LA over the weekend in a series of raids that prompted demonstrators to flock to the streets and demand their freedom. Phan is a killer, convicted of second degree murder. After he was kicked out of an LA county high school graduation party in 1994, he returned with his gang member cronies and fired semiautomatic rifles into a crowd of 30 people, killing two teens and wounding seven others, according to the Department of Homeland Security. 4 Cuong Chanh Phan, 49 Another criminal arrested in the weekend raids is 55-year-old Rolando Veneracion-Enriquez, from the Philippines, who was sentenced to 37 years in prison for assault with intent to commit rape, and sexual penetration with a foreign object in Pomona, California. Despite the reality of many of the arrested illegal immigrants' crimes, protestors attempted to block ICE officers from carrying out the raids over the weekend, and surrounded a downtown LA detention center where they thought the detainees were being held. President Trump eventually deployed the National Guard to try to quell the protests. Those alarming rap sheets — and more like them — have left many within the DHS and ICE shaking their heads at what they characterized as blindly misguided motives from protestors. 'That's who they're protesting for — the actual criminals that are being arrested, the sex offenders, the terrorists, all that,' an ICE source told The Post. 4 (Clockwise starting top left) Victor Mendoza-Aguilar, Armando Ordaz, Lionel Sanchez-Laguna, Jose Gregorio Medranda Ortiz, Jesus Alan Hernandez-Morales and Delfino Aguilar-Martinez were all arrested by ICE and have criminal records 'You have criminals, gang members, terrorists, child molestors, sex offenders that are being arrested, but since people don't know the background of the case or what's going on, everybody's innocent,' the source added. 'It's disappointing to see that ICE was enforcing the immigration law and actually arresting criminals, but the public sees it as everybody's innocent, which is not true.' The list of violent offenders arrested in the raids goes on. 4 Rolando Veneracion-Enriquez has a conviction for attempted rape ICE / SWNS Among them is Armando Ordaz, a 44-year-old Mexican national who is allegedly a member of the Bratz 13 gang and has a Los Angeles conviction for sexual battery. Delfino Aguilar-Martinez, 51, is a Mexican national with a conviction for assault with a deadly weapon with great bodily injury. He was arrested Friday. And 55-year-old Lionel Sanchez-Laguna, a Mexican national, was also arrested over the weekend. He has a convictions for firing a weapon at an inhabited dwelling, battery of a spouse or cohabitant, and willful cruelty to a child. He also has a DUI to his name, along with assault with a firearm. Victor Mendoza-Aguilar, 32, was also arrested Friday. The Mexican national has California convictions for possession of controlled substances and paraphernalia, along with assault with a deadly weapon. 4 Riots were sparked in Los Angeles over the weekend after protests over ICE raids went out of control Jake Lee Green/ZUMA Press Wire / Other illegal immigrants arrested in the weekend raids have convictions for drug dealing, robbery, grand larceny and transporting illegal aliens. California leaders like Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass have blamed Trump for inciting the riots, saying his deployment of the National Guard without the state's permission or request created chaos. But the DHS thinks California's leadership has the story backwards — and cited Phan's criminal history as the perfect example. 'This criminal illegal alien is who Newsom and Bass and the rioters in Los Angeles are trying to protect over US citizens,' a DHS spokesperson said.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Mexican police kill 4 gunmen, cross into Guatemala in dramatic border shootout
TAPACHULA, Mexico (AP) — Mexican state police killed four gunmen near the border with Guatemala, then pursued more suspects into that country in three armored police vehicles, where they engaged in a shootout in the streets of a border town. Authorities in both countries said Monday they were investigating. The rare case of Mexican law enforcement crossing the border into Guatemala on Sunday in La Mesilla was captured by onlookers in videos widely circulated online. With the border crossing a short distance in the background, armed men in ballistic vests and carrying rifles can be seen shouting at the open driver side door of a Chiapas state police armored vehicle. Suddenly, another such vehicle comes speeding through the border crossing from behind scattering the armed men. The initial vehicle reverses back toward Mexico and a third armored police vehicle enters from a side street slamming a civilian vehicle into the side of the other armored police truck. Gunfire erupts with the police trucks and civilian vehicles getting hit by bullets. All the while, a Guatemalan military truck with a soldier in the turret, sits in the middle of the melee. It was the latest flare-up of violence along a section of the border that has become a flashpoint as rival Mexican drug cartels and their local affiliates battle for control of valuable smuggling routes for migrants, guns and drugs. Asked about the events, Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that everything appeared to show that Mexican authorities entered Guatemala. 'They are investigating it and it is not all right that has happened,' she said. Chiapas state Gov. Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar criticized what he suggested were Guatemalan authorities protecting members of organized crime. His security chief, Oscar Aparicio Avendaño, told The Associated Press on Monday that police had used a drone to detect armed men crossing the border into Mexico. Police intercepted them, killing four, including a local gang leader. 'They try to cross (back to Guatemala) to evade justice and that's where we intercept them and there's the shooting,' Ramírez said. The police involved were part of a state police force called the Pakales, which have also been accused of wrongdoing. Across the border in Guatemala, authorities were cautious in their initial response. Guatemala Vice President Karin Herrera said Monday that the Guatemalan government was talking to Mexican authorities about what happened, 'but there are many things that must be confirmed.' Guatemala Defense Minister Henry Sáenz said none of the Guatemalan soldiers present in La Mesilla fired their weapons and that it remained under investigation. The stretch of the Mexico-Guatemala border has seen near continuous violence in the past two years as the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels battle for control. Last year, the violence spurred hundreds of Mexican residents to flee into Guatemala for safety. At other moments, towns have seen their power cut and cartel convoys parade through their communities. ___ Associated Press writers Sara Melini in Guatemala City and Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City contributed to this report.
