A failed Moroccan asylum seeker who committed three 'extraordinarily humiliating rapes' has been sentenced to 14 years in jail in the Netherlands.

The illegal migrant, identified only as 35-year-old Mustafa A. under strict privacy laws, carried out his attacks in Amsterdam in January 2016.

Prosecutors had been demanding 12 years, but the court decided to add two years on top of that because of the violent nature of the crimes.

Mustafa A., 35, has been jailed for 14 years in the Netherlands for three violent rapes. In at least two cases he held a knife to the victims as he raped them multiple times

The judge said Mustafa 'did not for a single moment think about the feelings of the victims.'

Mustafa A. carried out his knifepoint attacks on women walking home alone at night between January 19 and January 23, the court was told.

He raped at least two of his victims, aged between 20 and 26, multiple times while he had a knife to their throat, local newspaper Het Parool reported.

One of the women was even attacked inside the elevator at her apartment building after arriving home.

During at least two of the rapes, Mustafa did not use a condom, the court was told.

After committing the brutal attacks he then went on the run for three months before being caught in April.

This caused the victims and other women in the city additional distress, judges said.

Mustafa was caught after his DNA was found to match DNA on his victims' clothes, and after multiple people recognised him from CCTV footage inside a pawn shop where he sold a phone stolen from one of the women.

Mustafa targeted the women as they walked home alone at night in Amsterdam, with one victim attacked inside the elevator in her own apartment building

In passing sentence, judges noted that the victims feared for their lives and have been heavily traumatised, meaning he needs to be kept away from society for as long as possible.

Local media reported that Mustafa A. did not to speak any Dutch in court and looked around as if he had no idea what was going on.

Yet he did threaten his victims in Dutch during the rape saying 'you will die', 'screaming is pointless' and 'I will put this knife between your ribs'.

Judges were asked to consider confining him to a psychiatric facility, but he will be sent to a conventional jail after medics were unable to tell if he is genuinely mentally ill, or simply pretending.

During his confinement in investigative custody awaiting the trial Mustafa A. also started a fire in his cell, causing the entire evacuation of two departments of the detention centre.

It has not been reported if Mustafa A will be deported after his sentence ends.