Turkish dating show contestant vows not to kill third wife

A Turkish man who was kicked of a TV dating show after revealing he had killed his two previous partners has made a stirring romantic pitch by vowing not to kill a third wife.

The audience of the Luck of the Draw game show was gobsmacked Thursday when Sefer Calinak, a bald 62-year-old contestant sporting a heart-framed name tag, calmly explained he was a convicted double murderer.

"I'm an honest person looking for a new wife," he told the show, claiming he killed his first wife because he was "irritated" by her behaviour and murdered his subsequent wife because he thought she was after his money.

Conversely, in an interview he gave after being asked to leave by the show host, the burly moustachioed man explained he killed his first wife - also his cousin  - out of jealousy and his subsequent lover accidentally, "when I swung an axe".

"Women would leave me after I told them that I murdered my previous wives. But I spent 14 years in jail. I have changed," he told the Haberturk newspaper published Friday.

Calinak described himself as an "honest person looking for a new wife" and added: "The woman who will marry me should not be afraid that I would kill her."

He was released from prison under an amnesty programme and is currently still single.