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At Aqtan prison, the loudest sound isn't the rattling of bars, but the silence of the archives.
When the YPG retreated, they didn't just take their keys; they took the identities of the men left behind. Walking through the facility almost a week ago, I realized that Raqqa’s new authorities are faced with a troubling reality: thousands of inmates, almost zero files, and the impossible task of sorting the innocent from the architects of terrorism.
During evacuation negotiations, the YPG destroyed most prison documents, leaving the new authorities with little to no reliable information on who was imprisoned for Daesh-related crimes and who was not. And almost no documents are available regarding Daesh prisoners. To avoid wrongful detention and prevent imprisoning individuals under false pretenses, the new prison administration has launched a comprehensive reinvestigation process.
As far as I am aware, I was the first foreign Syria expert to visit Aqtan prison after it came under Syrian government control. I visited the inside of the prison cell hall and the administrative block. This allowed me to speak directly with the new authorities, including an official responsible for identifying Daesh prisoners. He pointed to a massive problem: nearly every inmate accused of belonging to Daesh now claims they were locked up on false charges. With the paper trail intentionally wiped out, the new administration has no documents left to prove why these men were ever behind bars.
He described how the authorities are now working on a case-by-case basis to verify these claims. In one instance, they were able to prove that an inmate had served as a Daesh "emir" (commander). For that, they contacted another Daesh member in a prison in Idlib who was able to identify this individual and provide video footage confirming his role within the terrorist organization. This man claimed he was arrested for waving the new Syrian flag.
While identifying an emir may be comparatively easier, the larger question remains unresolved: how will the authorities verify the claims of hundreds of other prisoners whose cases lack documentation, but might be former low-level Daesh members?
The problem, however, is not limited to potential Daesh detainees. When Syrian authorities took control of Aqtan in northern Raqqa, they were shocked to find around 120 children being held in severely mismanaged conditions. All underage detainees were immediately released. Their testimonies were alarming, as they described various forms of torture, including beatings and electric shocks.
But this was only part of the picture. Hundreds of the roughly 1,500 prisoners—and their relatives—contacted the new authorities, claiming that they or their family members had been imprisoned on false charges. Many stated that their detention was merely the result of expressing sympathy for the new Syrian government.
The human cost of this confusion became clear to me during my visit. An elderly man approached me after realizing I was Turkish. Speaking fluent Turkish, he explained that his son had been imprisoned more than six years ago, accused of providing intelligence to the Turkish state during Operation Peace Spring.
While his story may be true, it is now exceedingly difficult to verify without any evidence. It was a moment that underscored the immense challenge facing the Syrian authorities as they struggle to separate genuine security threats from years of arbitrary detention.
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