Tributes poured in Sunday while police investigate the death of Yavuz Yılmaz, the eldest son of former Prime Minister Mesut Yılmaz. Yavuz Yılmaz, 38, was found dead in his Istanbul home on Saturday in what the university he worked at implied was "suicide." A gun, reportedly belonging to his father, was found near the body that had a gunshot wound in the head.
The Yılmaz family was on a U.S. trip when their son was found dead and flew immediately back to Turkey. Mesut and his wife Berna Yılmaz received visitors paying condolences yesterday, including Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım and several ministers.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also telephoned the Yılmaz family to extend his condolences. Istanbul's Kent University, where Yavuz Yılmaz served as a board member and his mother was chair of the board, issued a statement yesterday and said he was "battling with epilepsy lately." "He has been under great stress due to complications of temporal lobe epilepsy that would lead to paralysis. He bowed to the pressure and bid farewell to this life. We are deeply sorry to have lost him," the statement said.
Yılmaz's workers said he spent the night alone, and after ringing the door bell a couple of times in the morning with no response whatsoever they decided to call the police. "We entered the house with the help of a locksmith in the morning and found a gun right by his side," they told police at the scene.
Seventy-year-old Mesut Yılmaz of the center-right Motherland Party (ANAP), served three terms as prime minister between 1991-1999.
A funeral ceremony for Yavuz Yılmaz will be held today in Istanbul.
