By: Dr. Adnan Bozan

In politics, not every coincidence is innocent. Nor is the mere coincidence of events, however striking it may appear, sufficient on its own to prove the existence of a conspiracy or deliberate criminal intent. But when events unfold at an extremely sensitive political and security moment, and when geography, identity, weapons, and blood intersect, political and legal reason has a duty not to settle for the first narrative it is given, nor to accept the easiest explanation simply because it is the explanation presented to it.

What happened in Hasakah, followed by what happened in Kobani, compels us to examine details that may appear minor on the surface, but which, in politics, security, and law, may hold the keys to the entire picture.

The Kurdish young man, Siban, was killed after being abducted under circumstances that, according to the information currently circulating, still require the full truth to be established and the parties who carried out the crime to be precisely identified, as well as anyone who may have been behind it, facilitated it, or provided cover for it, if the existence of such parties is established.

People took to the streets in Kobani in anger—not in pursuit of sedition, nor with any desire to turn the case into a conflict between Arabs and Kurds, but in protest against the killing of a Kurdish young man amid an extremely sensitive political and security climate.

Then, in the midst of this tension, Kobani Prison caught fire.

This is where the real questions begin.

The question is not merely: How did the prison catch fire?

The more important question is: Who was inside the prison when it caught fire? And who was responsible for the prison at that moment?

This point must not be lost amid the political and media noise. According to the information circulating, the prisoners who died in the fire were not the people who had taken to the streets to protest Siban's killing, nor, according to this account, were they participants in the latest protests. Rather, they were detainees who had already been held in the prison before those events.

And this makes the question even more complicated.

If these detainees had nothing to do with the demonstration held in protest against Siban's killing, why is the prison fire automatically being linked to the state of protest witnessed in the city? And if the circulating narrative claims that some prisoners started the fire in protest against their transfer to a prison in Aleppo, where are the official decisions concerning the transfer? Who issued them? And were adequate security and humanitarian measures in place to prevent such a catastrophe inside a closed facility?

More importantly of all: What happened in the minutes before the fire broke out, and what happened in the minutes that followed?

There is a fundamental difference between a prisoner protesting inside a prison and a prisoner dying inside a prison.

Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that some detainees engaged in rioting or started the fire, that does not automatically absolve the authority responsible for managing the prison. A prison is not an ordinary public place where a person can protect himself or leave danger whenever he wishes. It is a closed facility, and the detainee is under the control of the authority operating it. Consequently, the duty to protect his life and safety constitutes a fundamental part of the legal and security responsibility borne by the prison administration.

That is why the statement, “The prisoners started the fire,” is not enough.

Even if that fact were established, the question would remain:

What did the prison administration do to save them?

And here we arrive at the most sensitive question:

Was the fire actually the result of the prisoners' actions, or is there another possibility that should be investigated?

Neither possibility may be asserted as fact without evidence. At the same time, the door to alternative possibilities cannot be closed simply because one narrative has become the dominant narrative.

Law does not operate on impressions, and responsible politics does not build judgments on rumors. But both require questions to be asked when the facts are incomplete or the accounts contradict one another.

If the prisoners started the fire, who exactly started it? How? And where? Are there surveillance-camera recordings? Are there independent witnesses? When did the fire begin? When were the responsible authorities notified? When did the rescue operation begin? Who issued the orders? Were the cell doors opened? If not, why not? Were firefighting and rescue facilities available? And were they used in a timely manner?

These are not marginal journalistic questions. They directly concern the lives of people who were inside a closed facility and under the authority of an entity that was supposed to be responsible for their safety and security.

There is another question that is no less important:

Why did the fire occur at precisely that moment?

If the prisoners were protesting their transfer to Aleppo, then the transfer decision should be documented, the authority that issued it identified, and the responsibilities clearly established. And if the dispute over the transfer had existed for some time, what caused the fire to occur at that particular moment, amid the tension that followed Siban's killing?

The timing, by itself, does not establish deliberate intent.

But it does make an investigation necessary.

Here, we must be absolutely clear: no specific party should be accused of setting the prison on fire without evidence. Nor should any party be accused of murder, execution, or premeditated planning merely because of temporal or political circumstances. At the same time, people cannot be expected to accept a ready-made narrative simply because it is the easiest one, particularly when fundamental questions remain unanswered.

Politics is not a court of rumors, but neither is it a room for receiving official statements.

Truth does not become less important because it is uncomfortable, and asking a question does not become a crime simply because it disturbs those who hold power.

What makes the case even more serious is that Siban's killing itself occurred within an extremely sensitive political and security context, where any crime with an ethnic or retaliatory dimension can rapidly become a spark for conflict between Arabs and Kurds.

Here, we must be clearer than ever:

Not everyone who commits a crime in the name of a tribe represents that tribe. Not every Arab is responsible for a crime committed by armed men. Likewise, any crime committed against a Kurd must not be transformed into a collective accusation against Arabs.

This is not political luxury; it is an ethical, national, and legal necessity.

But rejecting collective blame does not mean burying the truth.

If it is established that an armed group abducted and killed Siban, then the identities of its members must be established, as must the identity of whoever led them, armed them, ordered them, facilitated their movement, or provided them with protection or cover, if such cover existed. And if it is established that tribal identity was politically exploited to settle scores with the Kurds, that must be exposed before the law and the public, rather than turned into a pretext for a broader civil conflict.

A state that allows weapons to exist outside the law and then asks the victim to remain silent in the name of “social peace” does not create peace; it merely postpones the explosion.

The same applies to Kobani Prison.

If the prison was under the administration of a specific authority, that authority must bear its legal and administrative responsibility for the facility and for its protection and rescue procedures, to the extent established by the investigation. If responsibility had been transferred, or was in the process of being transferred, from one authority to another, then the authority legally responsible at the moment the fire occurred must be identified, and the respective responsibilities must be precisely determined.

Leaving a prison in a gray zone, where citizens do not know who holds the decision-making authority or who bears responsibility, is a ready-made recipe for disaster.

As happened during the night of betrayal in Kobani, I possess a great deal of information and evidence that has not yet been revealed. When the time comes, I will place all of it before the public and expose what happened, far from canned narratives and attempts to conceal the truth.

A modern state cannot be built upon security institutions with multiple chains of command. Nor can there be more than one party exercising authority over the same place while no one assumes responsibility when people die.

The state, at its core, means something simple and decisive:

You must know who holds the decision-making power, who controls the weapons, who has the authority to detain, and who bears responsibility when a mistake or a crime occurs.

When authority is divided whenever decisions are made, but responsibility disappears whenever blood is shed, that is not a state; it is institutionalized chaos disguised as governance.

For this reason, the Kobani prison fire must not be closed with the statement:

“The prisoners set themselves on fire.”

Even if that narrative were proven true, it would not answer the most important question:

Why were they not saved?

That question may be more important than knowing who started the fire.

If it is established that a prisoner started the fire, and it is subsequently established that the prison administration failed in its rescue procedures or refrained from taking measures that could have prevented the detainees' deaths, then the case ceases to be merely a “fire.” It may give rise to legal and criminal liability, according to what the investigation and evidence establish.

Conversely, if the investigation establishes that the prison administration took all possible measures and that the fire spread suddenly and rapidly in a manner that made rescuing the victims impossible, then the responsible authorities must provide the public with evidence demonstrating this.

Truth does not fear investigation.

An authority that bears no criminal responsibility should have no reason to fear the disclosure of surveillance footage, guard logs, communication records, firefighting reports, forensic reports, and testimonies from employees, prisoners, survivors, and anyone else whose evidence may reveal the true sequence of events.

Closing the case with contradictory narratives, or merely issuing a brief statement, is what opens the door to rumors, suspicion, and mutual accusations.

At this point, the case goes beyond Siban and Kobani Prison.

It concerns a much larger question:

What kind of Syria do we want?

Do we want a Syria founded on the rule of law, or a Syria governed by balances of power?

Do we want a state in which the killing of a human being is a crime regardless of his ethnicity, or a state in which Kurdish blood becomes less valuable whenever justice conflicts with political calculations?

Do we want security institutions subject to law and accountability, or multiple armed formations that can exercise authority and then disappear from responsibility when victims fall?

The most dangerous thing that can happen to the Kurds in the new Syria is not merely that one of their sons is killed. It is that he is killed, and then a second killing begins—the killing of the truth—through contradictory narratives, ready-made justifications, and settlements built upon the blood of victims.

Truth cannot bring Siban back to life, but it can prevent the crime from being repeated.

Justice cannot erase the blood of those who died in Kobani Prison, but it can prevent their deaths from being treated as a passing incident that is eventually buried with time.

Therefore, what is required today is not revenge, nor mobilizing the streets along ethnic lines, nor turning Arabs into a collective enemy, nor reducing the Kurds to perpetual victims.

What is required is truth, justice, and accountability.

We want to know who killed Siban.

We want to know who abducted him.

We want to know who issued the order, if such an order existed, and who provided cover or facilitated the crime.

And above all, we want to know what happened inside Kobani Prison.

Who started the fire?

Who was responsible for the prison at that moment?

Who issued the orders?

Who had the authority to open the doors—or to keep them closed?

When did the rescue operation begin?

What measures were taken?

Could the victims have been saved?

And if they could have been saved, why were they not?

These are not questions asked by someone seeking conflict; they are questions asked by someone who wants a state.

If there are those who believe that asking such questions threatens social peace, I say exactly the opposite:

Concealing the truth is the real threat to social peace.

Societies do not explode because they learn the truth. Societies explode when they feel that the truth is forbidden, that the blood of some of their people can be spilled with impunity, and that the law cannot reach those who possess weapons and influence.

If the new Syria truly wants to be different from the old Syria, it must begin precisely here:

No immunity for a killer.
No protection for an official.
No cover for an armed man.
No justification for the death of a prisoner.

Siban is not a number.

Those who died in Kobani Prison are not numbers.

Every drop of blood shed in this country must lead to the truth, not to another narrative; to justice, not to another settlement in which responsibility is buried alongside the victims.

What is required is neither a political trial in advance nor collective revenge, but an independent, transparent, and verifiable investigation that preserves the evidence, determines responsibility, reveals the full truth, and brings anyone whose responsibility is established before the law, regardless of identity, position, or status.

For when coincidence becomes too mysterious to be coincidence, investigation becomes a duty.

When narratives multiply, truth becomes the responsibility of the state.

And when a human being dies behind a locked door, the question of who held the key to that door is no less important than the question of who started the fire.

Justice does not ask: Who was the victim?
Justice asks: Who committed the crime? Who was responsible for preventing it? And who failed to save its victims?

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