Turkish minister says Somalia president’s son will return to face trial over fatal highway crash

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The son of the president of Somalia will return to Turkey in the coming days to face trial over a fatal highway crash in Istanbul, Turkey’s justice minister said Thursday.

Yunus Emre Gocer, a 38-year-old motorcycle courier, was hit by a car driven by the Somalia president’s son, Mohammed Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, on a highway in Istanbul. The man died in a hospital six days later on Dec. 6.

Turkish authorities ordered the president’s son arrested and barred him from traveling abroad, but reports said Mohamud had already left Turkey by the time the warrant was issued. Turkey also launched an investigation into officials who conducted an initial investigation into the crash and reportedly allowed Mohamud to go free.

“We have held talks with Somali judicial authorities,” Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc told reporters. “It will be possible for the defendant to come to Turkey and to participate in the trial process in the coming days.”

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“I have talked to the Somali justice minister and they look on the matter with good intentions,” Tunc said, adding that he hoped that the trial would open soon.

On Tuesday, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told The Associated Press that his 40-year-old son did not flee Turkey. He said he has advised him to go back and present himself to court. The younger Mohamud, who is a doctor, stayed at the scene of the crash and remained in Istanbul for several days afterward, the president said. He also extended his sympathy to Gocer’s family.

“I want to take this opportunity to send my condolences to the family, which I don’t know how to contact,” he said in Tuesday’s interview. “We share with them the grief of their loss. We are sorry for their loss.”

Turkey has built close ties with Somalia since 2011, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — then prime minister — visited the East African nation in a show of support as Somalis suffered from severe drought. Turkey has provided humanitarian aid, built infrastructure and opened a military base in Somalia where it has trained officers and police.

“I will do everything that I can to make sure that my son respects Turkish law and justice law, and stands in front of the courts in Turkey,” Somalia’s president said in the interview at United Nations headquarters in New York, where he presented a plan for his government to take over security from African Union troops and continue its fight against al-Shabab militants.

“Turkey is a brotherly country,” Mohamud said. “We respect the laws and the justice and the judicial system. As a president of Somalia, I will never allow anybody to violate this country’s judicial system.”