This far-right politician who groomed a 13-year-old girl and sexually abused her 108 times while fleeing across Europe until she escaped five years later has been jailed for six years.
Bernhard Haase, 58, was sentenced to six years in prison after a court in Freiburg, in the south-western German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, found him guilty on charges of child abduction and 108 counts of sexual abuse.
Haase’s victim Maria Henselmann, now 19, bravely testified in court against Haase.
Maria said: “These statements, the whole trial and the words spoken by the judge. When all this was over, all the last few years were over. All at once – as if a huge burden had been lifted off me.”
Maria reportedly met Haase, a trained electrician who was the former state treasurer of the far-right ‘Die Republikaner’ (‘The Republicans’) party in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, online in 2002 and told him that she was suffering from family problems at home.
At that time, Maria thought that Haase was her true love who cared deeply about her, although she now realises that he was a pervert and investigators found child pornography on his computer.
Haase managed to manipulate the 13-year-old into starting a new life with him, fleeing together to Poland.
Maria said she only let Haase abuse her as she thought the situation would only get worse if she refused.
She said: “I had to live together with him. How would that be when I do not want to have sex anymore? That would be quite strange and afterwards he would say something like ‘if you do not want it then I will not take care of you anymore’.”
Maria added that she decided “just to close my eyes for five minutes and be done with it” instead of taking the risk of making a fuss about it.
Police found Haase’s car along with his abandoned pet dog Simba a short distance away in Poland in July 2013, but then lost track of the politician and the teenager.
The pair then allegedly travelled from Poland through multiple Eastern European countries to Italy, where they lived in the Sicilian coastal town of Licata.
In Licata, they pretended to be father and daughter, saying that Maria’s mother had died years ago, living in a semi-derelict house and relying on handouts for food.
One neighbour said: “For four years they occupied a house outside of Licata. A ruin, without windows or doors, totally primitive.”
Another said: “They were neatly dressed. They were always quiet, did not beg directly. We asked them if they needed anything, we bought sugar, bread, milk and meat for them.”
Nobody asked why both were dependent on church welfare for food or why Maria did not attend school.
Maria finally decided to leave Haase and give herself up to the police after her 18th birthday. When Haase realised what she had done, he reportedly went crazy and ran out shouting through the streets of Licata, after which worried locals called the cops who then arrested him.
According to Maria’s mother Monika Beisler, the conditions in which the two lived in Italy were horrendous.
She said: “If people knew what the child went through in Sicily, no one would say she was in love with Haase.”
Prosecutors hoped that the court would also order additional preventive detention, which German judges can order if the perpetrator is deemed a risk for society in severe cases, but the court did not decide to order the measure against Haase.
Beisler said: “He shows no insight at all. He must be put under surveillance. I am firmly convinced that this will happen again.”
Haase is required to pay an undisclosed sum in damages to Maria’s mother Monika.
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Story By: Koen Berghuis, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
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