A man convicted for the murder of a 20-year-old female student, in a case that sparked fury over violence against women in Turkey last year, was on Monday shot dead in prison, the government said.

Minibus driver Ahmet Suphi Altindoken was jailed for life without parole in December 2015 for murdering and attempting to rape Ozgecan Aslan, a crime that triggered nationwide protests.

Ahmet Suphi Altindoken, 27, was hospitalised after the prison attack, however doctors were not able to save him.

Altindoken's father, Necmettin, 51, who was one of two men jailed as accomplices to the murder, was wounded in the attack at the high-security prison in the southern Adana region, said government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus.

"We received the information that the person was badly wounded and then died. And we were made aware that the father was also wounded but his life not in danger," he said after a cabinet meeting.

"To kill anyone in prison -- whoever it is -- is unacceptable. Whatever negligence there has been will be brought to light."

The Dogan news agency reported that he was shot near the heart with a 6.35 millimetre pistol.

Prosecutors from the Adana region have launched an inquiry into the brazen attack which will come as an embarrassment to Turkish judicial authorities.

However the circumstances and who committed the killing inside the prison remain unclear.

- 'Nothing can bring her back' -

"I don't know what happened. Nothing can bring my daughter back. We do not want to talk about this issue," the Hurriyet daily quoted Aslan's mother Songul as saying when asked about the prison attack.

During the trial it was revealed that Aslan had been travelling on Altindoken's minibus, and when all the other passengers had got off he drove to a wood and tried to rape her.

The young woman fought back using pepper spray but Altindoken then bludgeoned and stabbed her to death.

Altindoken's father and friend were found guilty of helping him burn and dispose of the body. The remains were found by police and the three were arrested.

Lawyers said after the trial that it was public pressure that saw the three men get aggravated life sentences -- the highest punishment in Turkey after it abolished the death penalty in 2002.

This did not however stop many people, including cabinet ministers, from calling for the men to face the death penalty.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- who enraged many Turkish women last year by declaring they were not equal to men -- said the guilty deserved "the most severe punishment" after Aslan's killing.

The murder trial was hailed as hugely symbolic in a country where an often-silent wave of violence against women sees hundreds killed at the hands of men, often their husbands, each year.

Killers have frequently been able to secure a reduced sentence by arguing that a woman provoked them, or that their dignity was impugned.

Activists say remarks by government officials about women and how they should be treated leave them exposed to violence.