The widow of a motorcycle courier who was killed in a traffic accident caused by Mohamed Hassan Sheik Mohamud, a son of the Somali president, has filed a complaint against the police officers responsible for a report blaming her husband for the accident, the Artı Gerçek news website reported on Wednesday.
The prosecutor on duty at the time was also included in the complaint.
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.
According to Göçer’s widow Öznur, 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 Yunus Emre Göçer, ultimately leading to his passing six days later, on December 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.
Artı Gerçek said on Tuesday that Öznur Göçer filed a complaint against the relevant police officers and prosecutor for blaming her husband for the accident and allowing Mohamud to flee the country without prosecution.
Göçer said the officers had informed her husband’s friends outside the hospital that the incident was a suicide before the footage of the collision was released.
She said her husband was working hard to earn a living and meet the rehabilitation expenses of their 8-year-old son who has autism, adding that he left the house wearing knee pads, a protective jacket and a helmet on the day of the accident because he was a person who followed the rules.
Göçer also said she believes negligence was involved in her husband’s treatment at the hospital.
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