Hamdi Kayapınar, twice sentenced to life imprisonment for killing six people in three years and for four attempted murders, was captured by police after he disappeared following a temporary leave from prison.

Kayapınar was serving his sentence in the capital Ankara when he was allowed temporary leave for a visit to his relatives in Kayseri, in central Turkey. When he did not return to prison last week, police started searching for him and found Kayapınar in an undisclosed location in Kayseri. Kayapınar was sent back to prison in Ankara.

Kayapınar was 25 years old when he was caught in 2001 and convicted for six murders between 1998 and 2001. He has confessed to murders which he blamed on feeling like "an outcast in society," as his family rejected him after he strangled his brother when he was 14 years old, which led to his first incarceration. Kayapınar told the court the random murders were "a way of hunting" for him, describing his victims as "prey" and his robbery of their possessions simply as "spoils."