A man from Afghanistan who refused to accept that his wife had dumped him travelled almost 3,000 miles and sneaked into Turkey as an illegal immigrant so that he could murder her after she had settled down and started a new life for herself in Istanbul.

Elham Atifi, 27, living in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, had married Muhammedullah Raihan, age not disclosed, in 2015, after they met while they were studying at university.

But shortly after they started living together she said that Elham had started to beat her and was violent, and nothing happened despite complaints that she made to local police during their two-year marriage.

She escaped from her husband in 2017, and at the insistence of her mother living in Vienna, she came to Turkey, which would be the first stop on her European journey that she hoped would eventually end up in Austria.

She rented a flat in the district of Sultangazi in the Turkish province of Istanbul and started working.

But furious Raihan managed to track down on social media, and attempted to enter Turkey illegally via Iran but failed. He then went on an illegal journey of 4500 kilometres (2796 miles) to reach the Turkish capital.

He crossed the Iranian border and then the Turkish border illegally and eventually after the epic journey reached Istanbul where he put in his plan to get revenge. He tracked her down online and apologised to her for what he had done, blaming pressure from his family, and saying it would be great if they could start a new life together in Europe.

Elham believed in her husband and told him her home address and was rewarded when he turned up with an iron bar which he used to hit over the head before strangling her with an electric cable.

Raihan, who reconnected with the smugglers who brought him to Turkey so they could take him home, was caught and detained while preparing to cross the Iranian border.

Raihan, who was prosecuted for aggravated life imprisonment, had his first hearing in the past few days (26th May)

In the hearing, he defended himself by saying that his wife had shamed him in front of his family and friends.

He said: “I was embarrassed in front of my family and people I knew since she escaped. I heard that she had a boyfriend here. When I heard about it, I got angry and thought, how could she do that? My honour had to be restored.”

The court heard there was no evidence that the woman had settled down with a new man.

He also claimed that it was not murder, as it was actually self-defence, because she had attacked him and he had only been fighting back.

He insisted: “She attacked me first, so I hit her on the head. She got up and tried to attack again. I pushed her, and she fell on the electric stove. When she started yelling for help, I wrapped the stove’s cable around her neck. I left the flat when she passed out.”

The Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Services was also involved in the case as they filed a complaint about Raihan as well.

The court adjourned the hearing which is set to continue at a later unspecified date.