BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) – Ousted Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutierrez took asylum in Brazil yesterday, ending a four-day drama that began when protesters, accusing him of abuse of power, drove him from office and forced him to take refuge in the Brazilian ambassador’s residence.

Gutierrez, whisked out of the residence before dawn, arrived in Brasilia with his family seven hours later aboard a Brazilian air force jet, military spokesman Lt Col Valdomiro Fagundes said.

“They were rescued,” Fagundes said. “The mission was a success.”

The former president, his wife, and one of his two daughters were received by members of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry and sent by helicopter to a hotel run by the military in Brasilia, Fagundes said.

Gutierrez, the third Ecuadorean leader forced from office in nine years, wore a blue suit, white shirt and no tie as he left the plane and walked about 200 metres to the military helicopter at the Brasilia airport. He did not talk to reporters.

But in the asylum request released by Brazil, Gutierrez said he had feared for his safety: “In light of the current situation in the Republic of Ecuador, I feel personally threatened and unable to guarantee my liberty and physical integrity, as well as of my wife’s and of my daughters’,” he wrote.

The mission was “very delicate and emotional” and Gutierrez and his family seemed exhausted, said Brigadier General Joseli Parente Camelo, who headed Brazil’s 14-man mission to Ecuador.

Gutierrez’s wife, Ximena Bohorquez Romero, thanked the Brazilian people several times, Camelo said.

The ousted leader’s older daughter, 20 year-old Karina, decided to stay in Quito because she was attending military school, Camelo said.