The Argentine government has granted diplomatic asylum to Ecuador’s former Minister of Public Works, María de los Ángeles Duarte, who has been a refugee at the Argentine embassy in Quito since August 2020, official sources reported this Friday (2).
The decision was reported to the Ecuadorian embassy in Buenos Aires on Thursday afternoon, sources told AFP.
According to sources, the measure was taken on the basis of the 1954 Diplomatic Asylum Convention and the American Convention on Human Rights.
Duarte, along with his younger son, whose father is an Argentine citizen, has been held at the Argentine diplomatic headquarters in Quito since 12 August 2020.
Sources consulted stated that he arranged for a technical legal meeting between representatives of both foreign ministries to be held on 12 December to address the issue.
“The meeting will be held in Quito to agree on strategies for the purpose. Both sides will sit down for dialogue,” said a source from Argentina’s foreign ministry.
María de los Ángeles Duarte, who was in the cabinet of former left-wing president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), was sentenced to eight years in prison in a corruption case.
In his defense, the former employee claims that his case is a political persecution case, with the same argument as Correa himself, who took refuge in Belgium in April of this year.
A Belgian resident since leaving the government, Correa was tried ‘in absentia’ in Ecuador and was sentenced to 8 years in prison for corruption.
source: Noticias
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.