Metin Avcı, 29, stabbed his wife to death during the latter's conjugal visit to the prison where he is serving time for murder in the central province of Sivas on Thursday evening.

Avcı, convicted for the murder of his nephew five years ago and sentenced to 15 years, was allowed to spend time alone with his wife Leyla in a "pink room," a name given to conjugal rooms in prisons in Turkey. He was allowed to take a small fruit knife to the room, along with a bowl of fruit. When the couple did not leave the room after the maximum three hours allocated for conjugal visits, guards entered and found the bloodied body of the wife on the floor. Metin Avcı was lying unconscious with blood dripping from his wrists. The injured man was hospitalized. Police found that Avcı slit his wife's throat before committing suicide. There was an emergency button in the room, but the victim apparently could not reach it.In his first interrogation, Metin Avcı said he had killed his nephew for raping his wife, and he was planning to kill his wife for "being raped" when the opportunity arose for the first time during her first conjugal visit.

The murder triggered a debate on prison security and how the husband was allowed to bring a knife into the conjugal room. Prison authorities said the knives were sold in prison as long as they are small in size and have a stub tip.

Conjugal visits were introduced in Turkey two years ago as part of reforms of the country's prison system. Inmates can meet their spouses in privacy inside the pink rooms that do not have cameras inside and can be locked by the convict.