The assailant who turned himself in to the police after stabbing prominent Turkish painter Bedri Baykam and another person in Istanbul on Monday has said he attacked the artist because he “did not like his type.”

Further investigation revealed that Mehmet Çelikel, 35, has received drug therapy for manic depression and spent six months in jail for stabbing the former fiancée of his second wife and another friend of his in 1998.

Çelikel’s brother Şaban Çelikel and his brother-in-law, identified only by his initials, E.Ö., were taken into custody as part of the questioning.

Married and divorced twice, Çelikel has a daughter from his second marriage in 1995. For the past five years, he has been unemployed and living alone in his home, where he usually slept through the day, according to the Doğan news agency, or DHA.

Investigators also disclosed that Çelikel used a knife known as a “commando blade” to stab Baykam and that he managed to learn the whereabouts of the painter at the time of the incident through his membership in a social-networking site.

Both Baykam and the other victim of Monday’s attack, Tuğba Kurtulmuş, are recovering in the intensive care unit of Acıbadem Maslak Hospital, said Professor Çağlar Çuhadaroğlu, the chief surgeon.

“At the moment, only first-degree relatives are allowed to visit the patients,” Çuhadaroğlu said. “The monitoring process in such cases lasts for about four or five days at least. It was observed in today’s evaluations that the general condition of our patients is improving.”

Interior Minister Osman Güneş meanwhile said Monday that he was saddened by the incident. “We relish the fact that this case has come to a resolution without the loss of much time,” he said.

Baykam was stabbed while leaving a meeting in Istanbul in support of the controversial “Monument to Humanity” in the eastern province of Kars. The statue’s sculptor, Mehmet Aksoy, has claimed the attack was related to the ongoing debate about the proposed demolishing of the statue, described as a “freak” by the prime minister.

“The choice of time, person and place is quite meaningful. Bedri [Baykam] is a democrat friend of ours. He is a very determined libertarian who does not shirk from raising his voice,” Aksoy said, emphasizing that the attack was premeditated.

The group deputy chairman for the main opposition party, Mehmet Akif Hamzaçebi, also condemned the incident while paying a visit to the Acıbadem Maslak Hospital with his fellow Republican People’s Party, or CHP, member Bahri Şahin. “It is unthinkable for such a savage attack to take place. This should not happen,” he said