Cult leader Goel Ratzon speaks with his attorney in Tel Aviv District Court. He was given 30 years in prison for the sexual exploitation of women and children. REUTERS/Moti Milrod/Pool

A polygamous self-styled cult leader whose record of depravity sent shock waves through Israel has began a 30-year jail sentence after being convicted of multiple charges of rape and sexual abuse.

Goel Ratzon subjected 21 women he had taken as "wives" and many of the 38 children he fathered by them to a degrading existence of sexual servility after persuading them that he was a religious saviour possessed of godly powers, Tel Aviv District Court heard.

His regime came to an end when he was arrested in 2010 following a television report and a police investigation, which alleged that he was presiding over a harem in Tel Aviv.

A prosecutor's indictment against him alleged that he had committed crimes "that will rattle the mind, the imagination and question human morality".

Ratzon - who affected a religious appearance with his biblical-length white hair and beard - was found guilty last month of a string of offences, including aggravated rape, sodomy, sex with a minor, indecent assault and fraud. A panel of judges acquitted him of separate charges of enslavement of a type the prosecutor described as "common during the darkest times of human history".

That verdict angered one of his "wives", named only as "Maayan". "I was in complete slavery. If the state of Israel had not released me, I would have been serving a life sentence," she said.

Ratzon was convicted of carrying out sexual offences against six of the seven women who testified against him - some of whom were his daughters and most of whom were minors.

He denied the charges and insisted that the women consented to living with him.

Besides the sexual offences, Ratzon also imposed an authoritarian regimen in the form of a rule book, with fines for various transgressions.

Irish Independent