A thug who killed his student girlfriend after hearing her complimenting a customer and then claimed she had stabbed herself to death has been jailed for life.

Victim Elif Sinan, 24, was a final year student at the Department of International Relations at Kirikkale University in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey.

But when her boyfriend Tugrul Akan, 27, went to meet her at the cafe and overheard her complimenting a customer, he flew into a furious rage that ended when he stabbed her in the heart.

Grim video footage from 4th August last year shows him meeting with her in a cafe, and later running into Kirikkale Hospital carrying her slumped body in his arms.

Calculating Akan later told police that he had told her he wanted to break up and she had stabbed herself through the heart in despair.

But the court rejected this after it was revealed only his fingerprints were found on the blade, and not hers.

It was also noticed that she had a very slim frame, and yet the blade had been thrust into her body with such force it had smashed a rib.

They also pointed out the many contradictions in his statement and came to the conclusion that it was simply an attempt to divert blame for his actions.

They also added that it was not credible to believe she would stab herself in the heart also causing massive damage to her other organs and then pull the knife out and put it on the side before dying.

The high-profile case comes against a background of the fact that femicide is a growing problem in Turkey, particularly after the country officially quit the Istanbul Convention in July last year.

According to the 2021 Annual Data Report announced by the ‘We Will Stop Femicide Platform’, 280 women were killed by men in 2021, while 217 women were found suspiciously dead.

According to data from the ‘Monument Counter’, which is “a digital memorial for women killed by violence” and is updated daily, 378 femicides have taken place in Turkey so far this year.

When the verdict was announced in the latest case sending the boyfriend to jail for life, the hearing was attended by Derya Yanik, Minister of Family and Social Services, who said: “By attending the decision hearing, we wanted to show once again our sensitivity in the follow-up of the cases of violence against women and femicide.

“As Turkey’s government, our main point of departure regarding violence against women is zero tolerance.”

In the official judgement the court ruled: “When the whole file is taken into consideration, it is clear from the statements of family members and colleagues that the victim did not have any psychological disorders or problems that would have caused her to commit suicide as was claimed by the defendant.

Throughout the trial, he maintained his innocence, demanding a full acquittal and his release from custody.

The ruling went on: “By examining the official police report, expert statements, crime scene investigation reports and the camera recordings, and at the same time accepting that the defence can be disregarded because it contains contradictions and does not match the evidence in the file, because it is a transparent attempt to shift the blame, there is no alternative other than to find the defendant guilty.”

They then added that for the crime of deliberately killing the victim by stabbing her he would be jailed for life.

In Turkey, the minimum non-parole term for a life prisoner is 24 years.