The wife of a motorcycle courier who was recently killed in a traffic accident caused by Mohamed Hassan Sheik Mohamud, a son of the Somali president, has said the driver of the car was able to flee Turkey due to an inaccurate police report blaming her husband for the accident, the Cumhuriyet daily reported.
Motorcycle courier Yunus Emre Göçer, 38, was severely injured on Nov. 30 when he was struck from behind by President Hasan Sheikh Mohamud’s son, who was driving a vehicle registered to the Somali Consulate in the Fatih district.
Mohamud was taken into police custody following the incident but was released after giving a statement, which received significant backlash, following which a travel ban was imposed on him days after the accident.
Göçer’s wife Öznur, who spoke to Cumhuriyet over the weekend, said Mohamud was able to flee Turkey because the police officers who arrived at the scene wrote a report blaming her husband for the accident.
The collision resulted in severe injuries to Göçer, ultimately leading to his passing six days later, on Dec. 6, at İstanbul Teaching and Research Hospital.
An expert report drafted later, however, found the driver of the car to be primarily at fault, prompting the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office to issue an arrest warrant for him. However, it turned out that Mohamud had already fled Turkey on Dec. 2.
The expert report said Göçer did not violate any laws, while Mohamud failed to maintain the required distance between cars as stipulated by law and collided with the motorcycle from behind.
The woman said she would file criminal complaints against the person who caused her husband’s death and those who allowed Mohamud to flee the country without prosecution.
She said although Turkish authorities say they will take the necessary steps to make sure that justice is served, she does not trust them.
Turkish Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç previously said footage of the accident showed that Göçer was hit from behind while riding his motorcycle.
The minister said everyone is equal before the law and that if a crime was committed, there will be consequences.
Göçer also said the police told her that her husband died by suicide until the footage of the accident was released. She said if other couriers and the public had not demanded to know what really took place, the incident would have perhaps been covered up as “suicide.”
Göçer said she and her husband were working hard to earn a living and meet the rehabilitation expenses of their 8-year-old son who has autism. They also have a 15-year-old daughter.
“Now, we are left all alone,” she said.
Turkey has steadily increased its footprint in Somalia in the past decade and is the Horn of Africa nation’s leading economic partner, notably in the construction, education and health sectors.
Somalia and Turkey are longstanding partners, engaging in multi-tiered development cooperation, including military, social, economic and infrastructure partnerships.
While expressing his pleasure in hosting the Somali president and his delegation in Ankara in a July 2022 tweet, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed the president as “my dear brother.”
In the same tweet thread, the Turkish president also said the aid extended to Somalia in the past 10 years had exceeded $1 billion.
Bugün Somali Cumhurbaşkanı, aziz kardeşim Hasan Şeyh Mahmud ve heyetini Ankara’da ağırlamaktan memnuniyet duydum.
Türkiye Somalili kardeşlerinin yanında yer almaya devam edecektir. 🇹🇷🇸🇴 pic.twitter.com/1iIOrIBBIQ
— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RTErdogan) July 6, 2022
Meanwhile, a 72-year-old woman was severely injured in another auto accident in İstanbul on Sunday in which the son of former Yemeni Minister for Expatriate Affairs Ahmed Musaed Hussein was involved.
Hussein, who was in Turkey for medical treatment, was in the car when his 27-year-old son, Musaeed Ahmed Musaeed Hussein, hit Pakize Özer, who was trying to cross a narrow street in the Beyoğlu district. A police report found the woman, who is in intensive care at an İstanbul hospital, to be at fault. The driver of the car was released from police custody, but he was prohibited from leaving the country.