Rabbi caught on tape admitting to rape

A rabbi accused of sexually assaulting female followers, including a minor, is caught on tape admitting that he raped of one of them, Channel 2 reports.

Rabbi Eliezer Berland, who founded the Shuvu Bonim religious group, fled from Israel to Morocco in 2013 amid the allegations. He was extradited from South Africa last week, and detained upon his arrival at Ben-Gurion airport.

“She was raped from start to finish,” Berland is heard to say. “Afterwards she thought it was permissible, she thought it … the first time I raped her,” he says.

According to Channel 2, the incriminating recordings were made four years ago by two of Berland’s followers. They were told to burn all the tapes and other potentially incriminating material “in case the police do not cooperate.”

But some of the tapes survived, and were handed over to police yesterday.