Turkey’s Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) has issued a report that found a son of the president of Somalia who was recently involved in a fatal accident in Turkey and subsequently fled the country to be primarily at fault, the Diken news website reported.
The accident led to the death of Yunus Emre Göçer, 38, a motorcycle courier.
Göçer was critically injured on November 30 when he was struck from behind on a busy highway in İstanbul by Mohamed Hassan Sheik Mohamud, a son of Somali President Hasan Sheikh Mohamud who was driving a vehicle registered to the Somali Consulate in the Fatih district. He succumbed to his injuries in a hospital on December 6.
The ATK report, based on video footage of the accident, found Mohamed Hassan Sheik Mohamud to be primarily at fault because he did not brake when necessary or maintain a safe distance when changing lanes, which resulted in a collision with Göçer’s motorcycle.
Göçer has been found to be secondarily at fault in that he did not check his mirrors to see if he had enough room for a lane change or whether the car behind him was also attempting to change lanes. The accident took place in the right lane, where both Mohamud and Göçer were driving after moving there from the middle lane.
The report also said Göçer lowered his speed significantly in the lane which had a maximum speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour and maneuvered slightly to the right.
An initial report drafted by police officers who arrived at the scene of the crash blamed Göçer for the accident.
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 a belated arrest warrant for him.
Mohamed Hassan Sheik Mohamud was taken into police custody following the accident but was released after giving a statement, which received significant backlash, following which a travel ban was imposed on him days after the collision.
However, it turned out that Mohamed Hassan Sheik Mohamud had already fled Turkey on Dec. 2.
Somali President Mohamud told The Associated Press in his first comments about the accident last week that his son didn’t flee Turkey following the accident and that he has advised him to go back and present himself to court.
“It was an accident. He did not run away, and he hired a lawyer for this purpose,” the president was quoted as saying by AP. “And there was no arrest warrant. … So, he has a business and he came out of the country.”
President Mohamud said he is urging his son to go back and present himself to the court but adds that he’s an adult and will make the final decision himself.
Turkish Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said last week that he expects the president’s son to soon return to Turkey to stand trial for the fatal accident.
“We’ve had talks with Somali judicial authorities,” Tunç told reporters last Thursday. “It will be possible for the defendant to come to Turkey to stand trial in the coming days.”
“I have talked to the Somali justice minister, and they [are well-intentioned],” Tunç said, adding that he hoped that the trial would start soon.
Göçer’s widow, Öznur, 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, which led to claims that the Turkish authorities were trying to cover up the incident due to Turkish government’s close ties to the Somali president.
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.”