A Turkish court has released on bail a married man who savagely beat the Russian woman he met online after allegedly locking her in an Istanbul hotel room for two days.

The attacker, identified as Alp Mutlu, 40, had beaten her so badly as the pictures show that he ended up with blood on his hands, but licked it off while telling her it was “tasty”.

Russian woman Otteva Elvira, 47, travelled to Turkey to meet him in Istanbul after they started talking to each other on social media a year ago.

He had invited her to the city and they had flown to meet each other a few times in Russia and Turkey before she decided to go to Istanbul for a holiday with him in a hotel in the city’s Atasehir district on 13th March.

At the hotel, however, instead of a romantic lover, Mutlu became violent after drinking, and tortured the woman for hours on end over two days after believing that she was getting back with her ex-husband – with whom she has a 25-year-old son.

The woman, whose face was unrecognisable by the end of the ordeal, only escaped the room and raised the alarm with the receptionist when Mutlu left to go shopping.

According to reports, Elvira told the police from her hospital bed while still recovering from the alleged ordeal: “Our first day in the hotel was nice, he asked me ‘why don’t we have a baby together?'”

“He started asking about my ex-husband and why I decided to have children with him. He seemed jealous.

“He drank too much on 14th March and started beating me. He was shouting ‘I will kill you, I will cut your face so you’ll be ugly’ as he hit me.

“He even licked my blood on his hand, telling me it was very tasty. He tortured me for two days in the hotel room. He left to go shopping on 15th March and told me to clean up the blood until he comes back.

“I went down to the reception to ask for help. They put me in a different room and called the police.

“However, Alp found me and started beating me again.”

The suspect was arrested by the police and placed in custody, however, at the first hearing, the court decided to release him on bail.

Elvira’s lawyer, Abdullah Onur Eyuboglu, criticized the court’s decision and said: “Here is a woman who was in the intensive care unit for four days and she almost died.”

He added: “I don’t think I can say anything to my client that would explain either the fact that he has been released until the next hearing six months, or the fact that the next hearing is taking so long at all.”

The Russian woman was not called for the hearing, saying she was too scared to travel there from Russia.

The suspect is quoted as telling the police: “She was threatening to tell my wife about the relationship between us. She wanted to call my wife that day. When I didn’t give her my phone, she hit me on the arm. I hit her back. I did not torture her.”

He told the Anatolian 32nd Criminal Court of the First Instance that he nevertheless regretted what happened.

If convicted, he faces a 14-year prison sentence on charges of making threats, torture, and deprivation of liberty.