Somalia’s president says his son didn’t flee Turkey after he was involved in a fatal highway crash in Istanbul, and adds that he has advised his son to go back and present himself to court, which has issued an arrest warrant.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said in an interview with The Associated Press that his 40-year-old son, who is a doctor, stayed at the scene of the crash and remained in Istanbul for several days afterward.
“It was an accident. He did not run away, and he hired a lawyer for this purpose,” the president said. “And there was no arrest warrant. … So, he has a business and he came out of the country.”
Yunus Emre Gocer, a 38-year-old motorcycle courier, died in a hospital Dec. 6, six days after he was hit by a car driven by the president’s son, Mohammed Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, on a busy highway in Istanbul.
Turkish authorities ordered president’s son arrested and barred him from traveling abroad following the motorcyclist’s death, but reports said the younger Mohamud had already left Turkey by the time the warrant was issued.
“He still is linked to the country, and I am talking to him to go back and presenting himself to the court,” the president said. But his son is an adult and “the decision is his — but I am giving that advice,” he added.
The president 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.”