QUITO: A former Ecuadoran cabinet minister convicted of corruption has fled to Venezuela after spending more than two years holed up in the Argentine embassy in Quito, officials said Tuesday.
Maria de los Angeles Duarte, who served under former president Rafael Correa, was sentenced to eight years for bribery but had been living in the Argentine embassy since August 2020. Correa served from 2007 to 2017.
Argentina had offered her asylum, but Ecuador refused to grant Duarte free passage out of the country.
Duarte “was present in the Argentine embassy in Caracas” from 11:00 am on Tuesday, the Argentine foreign ministry said in a statement, without giving any details of how she had managed to escape to Venezuela.
Ecuador reacted angrily, summoning the Argentine ambassador in Quito, Gabriel Fuks, to explain what it called inconsistencies in the embassy's explanations of how Duarte had escaped and for refusing to hand over video surveillance footage from inside the embassy.
On Monday, Argentina’s Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero told his Ecuadoran counterpart that Duarte had escaped from the diplomatic mission “without the knowledge of staff” there.
Later Tuesday Ecuador declared Fuks to be persona non grata and recalled its own ambassador to Argentina for consultations, Ecuadoran Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Holguin said.
Duarte was convicted alongside Correa and other former government officials for corruption in relation to a request for bribes worth almost $7.6 million in return for state contracts, according to the public prosecutor's office.
Correa, who has been granted asylum in Belgium, where his wife was born, claims to be the victim of political persecution. - AFP
