German National aged 73 Dies in Luzira Prison
Bernhard Bery Glaser, the 73- year old German and founder of Ssese
Humanitarian service in Kalangala district who has been in prison on
allegations of defilement, indecent assault and aggravated child
trafficking has died.
Uganda Prisons Spokesperson Frank Beine told this website that Glaser died at the prison’s facility at 8:15am after Court hand granted him bail to travel abroad for medical treatment.
This German national had earlier been admitted at Mulago but the hospital management later recommended that he travels abroad for specialized treatment.
Mr Beine didn’t reveal what killed Glaser. It is believed to have succumbed to cancer.
“The process of clearing him to travel hadn’t ended before he died. We are now taking the body to Mulago and we will inform all relevant stakeholders,” said Beine.
The foreigner hit headlines after he was accused of sexually abusing girls in his care.
Bernhard Bery Glaser had been running an organisation for over 10 years where he was believed to provide shelter to child survivors of sexual violence, sex trafficking and those at risk of sex abuse
Mr Glaser was first arrested on 1 December 2013 on suspicion of sexually abusing 19 minors under his care in
Kalanga but was later acquitted by the court.
He had been running an organisation called Ssese Humanitarian Services out of his home in Kalanga for over 10 years, under the guise of providing shelter to child survivors of sexual violence and trafficking.
He is believed to have signed up 30 girls aged between three and 20 years old during this time.
He has, however, since been twice arrested on charges relating to sex abuse.
In the first case on 1th December 2013, he was arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing 19 minors under his care in Kalanga, but was later acquitted by the court.
At one point, authorities raided Mr Glaser’s home, but he was out at the time. His wife Ingrid Hehns was arrested for questioning.
The authorities rescued at least 11 children and Mr Glaser was arrested later when he reported to police.
Uganda Prisons Spokesperson Frank Beine told this website that Glaser died at the prison’s facility at 8:15am after Court hand granted him bail to travel abroad for medical treatment.
This German national had earlier been admitted at Mulago but the hospital management later recommended that he travels abroad for specialized treatment.
Mr Beine didn’t reveal what killed Glaser. It is believed to have succumbed to cancer.
“The process of clearing him to travel hadn’t ended before he died. We are now taking the body to Mulago and we will inform all relevant stakeholders,” said Beine.
The foreigner hit headlines after he was accused of sexually abusing girls in his care.
Bernhard Bery Glaser had been running an organisation for over 10 years where he was believed to provide shelter to child survivors of sexual violence, sex trafficking and those at risk of sex abuse
Mr Glaser was first arrested on 1 December 2013 on suspicion of sexually abusing 19 minors under his care in
Kalanga but was later acquitted by the court.
He had been running an organisation called Ssese Humanitarian Services out of his home in Kalanga for over 10 years, under the guise of providing shelter to child survivors of sexual violence and trafficking.
He is believed to have signed up 30 girls aged between three and 20 years old during this time.
He has, however, since been twice arrested on charges relating to sex abuse.
In the first case on 1th December 2013, he was arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing 19 minors under his care in Kalanga, but was later acquitted by the court.
At one point, authorities raided Mr Glaser’s home, but he was out at the time. His wife Ingrid Hehns was arrested for questioning.
The authorities rescued at least 11 children and Mr Glaser was arrested later when he reported to police.
They were sent to a shelter for safety. Instead, these women say they were sexually abused
This article contains sexually explicit language.
Kampala, Uganda -- When Patricia was picked up by police at the age of 11, she felt relieved.
Sold by an uncle to her teacher, she was raped and abandoned in Kalangala, a district of islands on Lake Victoria, in Uganda.
Patricia
thought her luck had changed when police officers from a local station
told her there was a man nearby who helped survivors of sexual abuse
like her.
"A big, fat, old muzungu
[foreigner or white person] came for me. They said he is taking care of
girls in your situation," Patricia, who is identified using a pseudonym,
told CNN.
"They said Bery is a good person and he will take you. I was a bit afraid, but I said OK since there are other girls there too."
Bernhard
"Bery" Glaser, a German national who describes himself as a "retired
health professional," founded Bery's Place, a children's home in
Kalangala, with his wife in 2006. According to his website, Glaser has
provided a home for dozens of girls, some of whom have survived
"physical, sexual, emotional or psychological abuse and violence," or
been "trafficked, abandoned -- or rejected -- by their legal guardians."
"For my kids, I'm the mommy, I'm the daddy, I'm everything," Glaser says in a promotional video.
An undated photo of Bernhard "Bery" Glaser.
But
five women in their late teens and early twenties interviewed by CNN,
including Patricia, allege that Glaser sexually and emotionally abused
them at Bery's Place. Survivors names have been changed to protect their
identities.
The young women say
that Glaser subjected them to repeated "vaginal examinations" involving
sexual touching and forced them to sleep in his bed, where he allegedly
sexually assaulted them. When the girls objected, they say Glaser would
threaten to cast them out on the streets. Survivors say this kept many
of the girls -- some of whom had previously been abused, or suffered
other traumatic experiences -- from speaking out.
Bery's
Place is one of hundreds of homes for vulnerable children purported to
be operating illegally in Uganda -- children's homes must be registered
with the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development under Ugandan
law. In 2018, the Ugandan government announced plans to close over 500
unregistered homes in the country. A lack of government oversight
combined with an open-door policy for foreign investors and volunteers
has left girls like Patricia vulnerable to abuse.
After
more than a decade running Bery's Place, Glaser was detained last
February, when he turned himself in, then formally charged and arrested
in April with 19 counts of human trafficking, seven counts of aggravated
defilement, one count of indecent assault and one count of operating an
unauthorized children's home. Thirteen girls were found at Bery's Place
when police raided the home in February, while others were reportedly
at school, according to lawyers supporting the prosecution.
Almost
a year on, Glaser's trial has been postponed at least eight times
because of requests made by his legal team, including claims he is unfit
to stand trial due to an ongoing cancer battle.
Glaser is currently at the Uganda Cancer Institute, awaiting a hearing on his bail application.
In
a statement sent by WhatsApp to CNN, a lawyer representing Glaser
denied that he had committed the alleged crimes, and emphasized the
seriousness of his deteriorating health.
"Mr.
Glaser maintains that he has never defiled or trafficked any one and
shall prove his innocence in the Court of law in Uganda and has more
than enough evidence and witnesses to disprove all the false allegations
against him," his lawyer, Kaganzi Lester, said.
'Medical exams' and 'sleeping timetables'
Young
women and girls who stayed at Bery's Place told CNN that they went
through a so-called "medical examination" upon arrival and frequent
"vaginal exams" during their time living there.
Girls
as young as five were told to strip naked so that Glaser could examine
them and insert candida medicine -- used to treat yeast infections --
into their vaginas, survivors allege, adding that the "exams" often took
place in a shower.
Some survivors
say Glaser introduced himself as a doctor, but lawyers supporting the
prosecution told CNN that he is a physiotherapist -- not a qualified
physician.
"I said to him after a
few times I can do it myself," said Patricia, now a 20-year-old
university student, adding that he continued to insert medicine and a
douche into her vagina after her complaints.
"He
said I had a small STI, but I don't believe I had any infection," she
said, explaining that the police had given Glaser the results of her STI
tests when she was placed in his care.
In
a 2017 email CNN has seen that sought to explain the controversy to
supporters of Bery's Place, Glaser said that the testing was in line
with "professional standards."
"The
only time I touch(ed) my girls in an intimate way, is when I apply
medicine, and this in an appropriate way to professional standards, with
their personal approval, part of the sexual health services we provide
often in cooperation with professional third parties, doctors, nurses,
midwives," he wrote.
But some survivors say these "medical examinations" were just a precursor to more abusive patterns of behavior.
"One
time I walked into Bery's room and found some younger children
massaging him while he was half naked," remembers Sharon, now 17, who
was 12 when she was taken to Bery's Place. She says that Glaser asked
her to join in, claiming that he needed to be massaged because of his
cancer and diabetes.
Sharon, and
several other survivors, said that Glaser asked them to create a
"sleeping timetable" for the girls to spend the night in his bed on a
rotating schedule. "He told us not to put that timetable in the living
room, because visitors might come and start asking what it's for,"
Sharon said.
"The first time I
slept in his room he started massaging me in the middle of the night,
touching my breasts, kissing my lips," Sharon said. Other girls
interviewed by CNN described Glaser penetrating them with his fingers
and forcing them to perform oral sex on him, saying it was "normal in
his culture."
The age of consent is
18 in Uganda and, according to the country's Children Act Amendment of
2016, "every child has a right to be protected against all forms of
violence including sexual abuse."
Sharon
said that when she threatened to report Glaser, he told her she could
"go back to the bush where you came from." After that, she was fearful
to speak out. With nowhere else to turn, she says she stayed at Bery's
Place for five years, sleeping in Glaser's room once a week.
Survivors
who spoke with CNN said the threat of instability -- being left
homeless, without money for food or school fees -- was what kept them
quiet for so long and even resulted in some of them defending Glaser
when he was first arrested in 2013.
A system that perpetuates abuse
To
cover up the alleged abuse, Glaser bribed local officials and used his
network of allies in Kalangala to threaten those who spoke out against
him, according to survivors and a police officer formerly based in the
district, who spoke with CNN.
Glaser's lawyer said he denied the bribery allegations.
Child
advocates and social workers say that it's not difficult for men like
Glaser to abuse Ugandan girls with impunity, given the power dynamics
that perpetuate the country's unregulated and lucrative orphanage
industry.
"When you see a white
person here you think they're coming with the biggest opportunities, so
people like Bery Glaser are able to use their privilege to oppress and
exploit our people," says Olivia Alaso, co-founder of No White Saviors,
which has helped provide safe accommodation and psychosocial support for
girls who lived at Bery's Place.
"The
government should be doing thorough and proper checks on their
backgrounds at home [before granting visas], and also the work these
people are doing in our communities."
Alaso
added that the red flags in this case were glaring: "How can a man live
in a shelter with all these girls at a minor age and no one does a
thing?"
While regulation of the
orphanage industry by Uganda's government has improved over the past
five years, only certain parts of the country have seen a change.
Caroline
Bankusha, a child protection expert and former probation officer, says
that part of the issue is a lack of alternative care options in Uganda.
"In Bery's case, was it really necessary for the parents to hand over
their girls to the care of a stranger? If they had to be separated from
their parents, was Bery's orphanage the most suitable for the care of
the girls, or were there other options?"
Lawyers
supporting the prosecution told CNN that they understood Glaser used
"legal guardianship orders" to gain custody of some of the girls -- a
now banned loophole which, until 2016, was often used by foreign
nationals to adopt Ugandan children quickly and easily, without
fostering them in-country for the then three years required by law.
Glaser's
lawyer would not comment on the use of legal guardianship orders,
saying it was "one of the issues to be resolved in court."
Another
obstacle is a culture where sexual abuse often goes unreported -- by
survivors and others -- despite policies and structures in place,
Bankusha says. According to the Uganda Violence Against Children Survey
2018, one in three girls ages 18 to 24 reported experiencing sexual
violence during childhood, including 11% of girls experiencing pressured
or forced sex.
Andy Wilkes, a
British builder who spent a month volunteering at Bery's Place in 2017,
told CNN that he had suspected abuse was taking place after seeing young
girls sleeping in Glaser's bed, but was not sure who to report it to.
Wilkes says a young woman later confirmed his suspicions, alleging to
Wilkes that Glaser had abused her using "toys, vibrators, fingers,
masturbation, blow jobs," since she was 12.
Wilkes
contacted a local Ugandan social worker with connections to Bery's
Place, Asia Namusoke Mbajja, who went on to report Glaser to the child
protection unit of Kampala Police in 2018.
Since
Glaser's arrest last year, Mbajja has received a barrage of
intimidating calls, texts and messages on social media so virulent that
she opened a case of offensive communication and threatening violence
with police.
According to a
preliminary police report, seen by CNN, one of the five phone numbers
used to threaten to "injure or harm" Mbajja is registered in the name of
Glaser's wife, Ingrid Dilen. Dilen was arrested for questioning by
police last February during a police raid at Bery's Place, and later
released. She is now in Belgium.
CNN has reached out to Dilen for comment.
Survivors
who have spoken out against Glaser, and their relatives, say they have
also been subjected to intimidation, as well as a smear campaign,
coordinated on a Facebook page titled Justice For Bery.
Patricia
said that her mother received what she says was a threatening call from
one of Glaser's friends, demanding that she stop her daughter from
standing as a witness. According to Patricia, he warned her mother that
she, and the rest of her family, could die "as a result of [her]
stupidity."
Waiting for justice
It is not the first time that girls in Glaser's care have been dragged through this ordeal.
A
spokesperson for Uganda Police, Charles Mansio Twiine, told CNN that in
2013 the police received reports that Glaser was running an illegal
children's home in Kalangala and allegedly abusing the children, the
majority of which were between 8- and 11-years-old at the time. Twiine
said the girls were interviewed and found to have contraceptive
implants: "Can you imagine from the age of 8, 9, 10, to be having an
implant?"
Twiine said Glaser
told police at the time he had given the girls implants to prevent them
from getting pregnant by local boys. The Director of Public Prosecutions
continued to gather evidence and ultimately launched a case against
Glaser, but when the time came for the girls and their parents to
testify, they did not appear in court.
"It
devastated us," Twiine said, adding that the judge had to dismiss the
case as a result. "We were worried and disappointed but at the time
there wasn't anything we could do."
While
Glaser was detained, police took Patricia back to the same uncle who
had trafficked her when she was 11 years old. With nowhere else to go,
she returned to Bery's Place after Glaser's release, where she said
"things got even worse." When she warned Glaser he would get arrested
again, she says he replied: "Who has the proof?"
Still,
she is determined to testify in court, saying that she hopes to get
justice for herself and the other girls who say they suffered for years
at Bery's Place.
Each time Glaser's
court date has been rescheduled, Patricia, Sharon and other witnesses
have traveled to Masaka High Court, missing school and preparing to give
painful testimonies, only to be told proceedings would not happen that
day.
Glaser's legal team have used a
range of tactics to try to ensure his release, including applying for a
plea bargain deal, which would have seen Glaser deported back to
Belgium, lawyers supporting the prosecution and a police source told
CNN.
The sources allege that
Glaser's defense have also sought to prevent, or delay, his hearing by
demanding proceedings be conducted in Flemish, despite Glaser's
demonstrated English proficiency, and suggesting that he was unfit to
stand trial due to a battle with cancer. The head of the Uganda Cancer
Institute, who previously declared that Glaser's condition was
manageable in Uganda, recently signed a letter recommending he urgently
travel abroad for treatment.
Glaser's
lawyer told CNN that the "lies being peddled about the plea bargain are
a crude attempt at circumventing the burden to prove Mr. Glaser's guilt
in court," and denied that demands for a Flemish translator were
attempts to delay the proceedings.
If
granted bail, CNN understands that Glaser will travel to Belgium for
treatment, but lawyers supporting the prosecution say it is unclear
whether he would return to stand trial. In an email sent in error to
CNN, German Ambassador to Uganda Albrecht Conze said he had been
personally involved in trying to accelerate court proceedings over the
past nine months, with the implied aim of ensuring Glaser's travel to
Belgium.
In a subsequent statement
to CNN, Conze said the German Embassy had "never taken a stance on the
substance of the case" and that "whether or not he [Glaser] is guilty of
the charges he is accused of is for the Ugandan judiciary to
determine."
Glaser previously
traveled to Belgium for cancer treatment while on bail in connection
with the 2013 case, according to the Germany Embassy and his legal team,
who say this demonstrates his willingness to return to Uganda to face
the court. "Glaser has always been and still is very determined to and
shall prove his innocence in the court of law in Uganda," his lawyer,
Kaganzi Lester, said in a statement to CNN.
Equality
Now, an NGO fighting to protect the human rights of women and girls
globally, told CNN that it was following the developments in Glaser's
case closely, along with its NGO partners in Uganda, including Joy for
Children, Raising Teenagers Uganda, and PINA Uganda, "to ensure that
there is accountability for the crimes committed and that the victims
are able to access justice."
"There
is a developing trend regarding the sexual exploitation of children in
Africa where pedophiles, especially from Western countries, take
advantage of under-resourced child protection systems, and weaknesses in
law enforcement and judicial systems. The Glaser case is just one
example of this deeply concerning phenomenon," Anita Nyanjong, a lawyer
and programme officer in Equality Now's End Sex Trafficking team, said.
"The
Ugandan government now has a significant opportunity to send a message
to would-be perpetrators of child sexual exploitation and child
trafficking that they cannot exploit with impunity and will be held
fully accountable for their crimes."
In
the meantime, Patricia and other girls wait to hear what will become of
Glaser. But for now, at least, they say they're beginning to enjoy
their lives outside of Bery's Place.
"The
first time I spoke about it was when I was called to the police station
in 2019. After I made the statement I went to the washroom, cried and
dried my eyes," remembers Patricia.
"I felt like something heavy had been put off my head."
"I felt free."
Edited by Eliza Mackintosh, CNN.
Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect that the statement from Glaser's lawyer was sent by WhatsApp.
