Ecuador’s
Vice-President Jorge Glas, in jail pending a criminal investigation
into allegations that he took $16mn in bribes from Brazil’s Odebrecht,
has told AFP that he is a victim of revenge by the construction giant.
Glas
on October 2 became the highest-ranking serving politician to go down
as a suspected recipient of illegal kickbacks from the Brazilian group
for helping it get public contracts.
Under investigation by the US
Justice Department, Odebrecht agreed in December to pay a record $3.5bn
fine after admitting to paying $788mn in bribes across 12 countries to
secure juicy tenders.
“I have never committed any crime. And a person
who does not commit a crime never expects to see himself in a situation
like this,” he told AFP in an interview at Quito’s Penitentiary 4.
Asked
about the motivation for him being investigated, Glas said it all went
back to a clash with the head of Odebrecht, whom he said was getting
payback after it was thrown out of Ecuador in 2008.
“Obviously,
(Marcelo) Odebrecht planned his revenge from the very day I asked him to
get out, when he refused to repair the San Francisco hydroelectric
plant,” Glas said.
“Marcelo Odebrecht met me, and hinted that we were
using him politically to win votes. I threw him out of my office,
shoved him out ... he threatened me and said, ‘You’re not always going
to be a public servant, you’ll see’, and he left.”
Glas is just the
latest political figure in Latin America to be identified as a suspected
recipient of bribes from the Brazilian group.
Fallout from the
scandal has cast a cloud over politicians in several other countries,
including Mexico, Peru, Panama and Venezuela.
Glas, who was minister
of strategic sectors before becoming vice-president in 2013, has denied
any link to the Odebrecht scandal, though his uncle, Ricardo Rivera, has
been arrested for his alleged involvement.
International / US/Latin America
Jailed Ecuador VP says he is target of construction giant’s revenge
Vice-President Glas is escorted back to the courtroom during his habeas corpus hearing on Saturday at the National Court of Justice in Quito.