Skip to main content

Sakine Cansiz

PKK co-founder, pioneering Kurdish women's rights leader, and survivor of years of torture in Turkey's notorious Diyarbakir prison, shot execution-style in Paris in January 2013 along with two other Kurdish women activists. Turkish intelligence (MIT) allegedly ordered the operation.

FieldDetails
Full NameSakine Cansiz (code name "Sara")
Born1958, Tunceli, Turkey
DiedJanuary 9, 2013
Age at Death54
Location of DeathParis, France (10th arrondissement)
Cause of DeathMultiple gunshot wounds to head and neck (silenced weapon)
Official RulingHomicide (case closed after suspect's death; reopened by anti-terror judge)
Alleged Intelligence ConnectionTurkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT)
CategoryActivist / Organizer

Assessment: HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS​

Sakine Cansiz was a co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who was shot execution-style along with Fidan Dogan and Leyla Saylemez at the Kurdistan Information Center in Paris. The sole suspect, Omer Guney, died of brain cancer days before his trial. Leaked recordings captured Guney allegedly planning the assassinations with MIT handlers, and a leaked document resembling a MIT "mission order" — reportedly signed by four MIT officials and referencing a 6,000-euro payment — pointed to a state-directed killing. French investigators established links between Guney and Turkish intelligence services. As the PKK's most prominent female founder and a living symbol of Kurdish resistance, Cansiz's assassination carried enormous political weight.

Circumstances of Death​

During the night of January 9-10, 2013, the three women were found dead inside the Kurdistan Information Center at 147 Rue La Fayette in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. Each had been shot multiple times in the head and neck at close range with a silenced weapon — execution-style. The building's security camera footage showed suspect Omer Guney entering the premises between 00:11 and 00:56, the time frame in which the killings occurred. There were no signs of forced entry, suggesting the killer was known to the victims or had a pretext to enter.

Forensic evidence tied Guney to the crime: DNA from one of the victims was found on his parka, and his bag contained traces of gunpowder. Despite this overwhelming evidence, Guney denied any involvement. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor while in custody and died on December 17, 2016 — just days before his trial was set to begin — eliminating the only defendant who could have testified about who gave the order.

Background​

Sakine Cansiz was born around 1958 in Tunceli (Dersim), Turkey, to a Kurdish Alevi family. She became politically active as a young woman during a period of intense repression against Kurdish identity in Turkey. In late 1978, she was one of 22 people present at the founding meeting of the PKK in the Lice district of Diyarbakir province. Cansiz and Kesire Yildirim (Abdullah Ocalan's former wife) were the only two women at the founding congress, making Cansiz the organization's first senior female member. She was given the code name "Sara."

Diyarbakir Prison​

Cansiz was arrested in 1979, shortly after the 1980 Turkish military coup d'etat. She was imprisoned in Diyarbakir Prison, which became notorious for its systematic torture of Kurdish political prisoners — 34 inmates died of torture there between 1981 and 1989, according to reports. Cansiz endured years of brutal treatment but became a legend among PKK members for her defiance. When a prison director tried to establish his authority over her, she reportedly responded: "I am Sakine Cansiz, a founder of the PKK. I am here now and I have my own principles!" She made several escape attempts, all unsuccessful, and was eventually transferred to Amasya Prison. Her resistance inside prison became a foundational story of the Kurdish movement.

Women's Movement Pioneer​

Cansiz was among the first Kurdish leaders to demand the recruitment and education of female revolutionaries and total gender equality within the PKK — principles that became central tenets of the organization. After her release in 1991, she joined PKK camps in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley and then in northern Iraq, where she both fought under the command of Osman Ocalan and organized and led women's combat squads. She played a key role in building the PKK's women's movement, which would grow into one of the most significant armed women's organizations in the Middle East.

In later years, Cansiz became a prominent figure in the Kurdish diaspora movement in Europe, operating from France and Germany. At the time of her murder, peace negotiations between the Turkish government and the PKK were reportedly underway — making the assassination of such a senior founding figure either a provocation or an act of sabotage by factions opposed to peace.

Intelligence Connections​

  • A leaked voice recording captured Omer Guney allegedly discussing assassination plans against Kurdish leaders with two individuals determined to be MIT members; the handlers promised financial support for Guney to purchase weapons from Belgium
  • A written document allegedly instructing the assassination of Cansiz surfaced two days after the recording; it reportedly carried the signatures of MIT Branch manager O. Yuret, Department manager U. K. Ayik, Vice president S. Asal, and President H. Ozcan, dated November 18, 2012
  • The document reportedly referenced a payment of 6,000 euros for the operation
  • French investigators established direct links between Guney and Turkish intelligence services, specifically MIT
  • The families of the victims filed legal complaints in 2017 with documents they said proved the killings were "an operation carefully planned by the Turkish secret services"
  • MIT officially denied any involvement in 2014, stating "our agency has nothing whatsoever to do with the murders" while acknowledging an "internal administrative investigation" had been launched
  • After the Paris prosecutor closed the case following Guney's death, the families successfully petitioned for an anti-terror judge to continue the investigation

Why This Death Raises Questions​

  • Three women shot execution-style with multiple bullets to the head from a silenced weapon indicates professional assassination, not random violence
  • Cansiz's status as a PKK co-founder made her one of the highest-value Kurdish targets in Europe
  • The sole suspect died of brain cancer days before his trial — preventing any testimony that might have revealed the chain of command from Guney to MIT leadership
  • Leaked documents and recordings allegedly linking MIT to the operation have never been formally tested in court
  • The killings occurred during a sensitive period of Turkish-PKK peace negotiations, potentially aimed at sabotaging talks that hardliners in Turkey's security establishment opposed
  • No other suspects have been charged despite evidence allegedly pointing to a broader intelligence operation with multiple officials involved
  • Turkey's NATO membership and strategic importance to France have complicated the investigation throughout
  • The pattern mirrors other intelligence assassinations abroad: a single expendable operative, a silenced weapon, and the death of the suspect before trial

Key Quotes​

"I am Sakine Cansiz, a founder of the PKK. I am here now and I have my own principles!" — Sakine Cansiz, to a prison director in Diyarbakir, according to accounts of her imprisonment

"The families point to documents they say prove the involvement of Turkey's spy agency." — France 24, December 2022

"The murders were an operation carefully planned by the Turkish secret services." — Victims' families' legal complaint, 2017

The Counterargument​

Turkey's MIT officially denied any involvement, stating "our agency has nothing whatsoever to do with the murders." Turkish authorities dismissed the leaked mission order document as fabricated. Some analysts noted that Cansiz's status as a PKK co-founder made her a potential target for internal rivals, though this theory is not supported by the evidence linking Guney to MIT. Turkey classifies the PKK as a terrorist organization and frames anyone associated with it as a security threat rather than a political figure. The fact that Guney died before trial means the question of state direction was never formally tested in court. However, the combination of surveillance footage, forensic evidence, leaked recordings, and leaked documents has led most independent analysts and French investigators to conclude that the operation bore the hallmarks of a state-directed assassination.

See Also​

  • Fidan Dogan — Kurdish activist murdered alongside Cansiz in Paris
  • Leyla Saylemez — Kurdish youth activist, third victim of the Paris triple assassination
  • Zelimkhan Khangoshvili — Chechen dissident assassinated in Berlin by Russian intelligence, 2019
  • Jamal Khashoggi — Journalist murdered by state intelligence abroad, similar pattern of state-directed assassination

Other Shocking Stories​

  • Maurice Bishop: Grenada's PM executed in a coup. The US invaded days later. CIA destabilization preceded both events.
  • Jamal Khashoggi: Walked into a Saudi consulate for a marriage document. A 15-man hit squad strangled and dismembered him inside.
  • Alexander Litvinenko: Poisoned with radioactive polonium in his London tea. UK inquiry found Putin 'probably approved' it.
  • Artyom Borovik: His plane crashed three days after meeting Berezovsky. He was investigating the FSB apartment bombings.

Sources​

This information was built by Grok and Claude AI research.

The Dead
  • Danny Casolaro

    Age 44. Told friends: "If I'm found dead, don't believe suicide." Wrists slashed 12 times in hotel. Investigation briefcase vanished. Body embalmed before family notified.

  • Gary Caradori

    Called his boss: "We got them by the short hairs." Plane disintegrated mid-air that night. His 8-year-old son was also killed. Evidence never found.

  • Fred Hampton

    Age 21. Shot twice in the head while drugged and asleep in bed. FBI informant drew the floor plan. FBI mailed the coordinating agent a bonus.

  • Karen Silkwood

    Age 28. Driving to meet a NYT reporter with proof of nuclear fraud. Car rammed off road. Documents vanished from wreckage. Jury awarded $10.5 million.

  • Mark Middleton

    Age 59. Found hanging AND shot in chest with shotgun. Gun found 30 feet from body. Arranged Epstein's White House visits. Death photos sealed by judge.

  • Arthur Shapiro

    Age 43. Wexner's lawyer shot point-blank in his BMW. Weeks later, Epstein took his job managing the billionaire's fortune. The murder that created Epstein. Unsolved.

  • Jamal Khashoggi

    Age 59. Strangled inside Saudi consulate. Dismembered with a bone saw while the doctor listened to music on headphones. Body dissolved in acid. Never recovered.

  • Virginia Giuffre

    Age 41. Epstein's most prominent accuser. Mother of three. Shot dead in rural Australia—strictest gun laws on earth. $20 million in settlements missing.

  • Dorothy Kilgallen

    Age 52. Only journalist to privately interview Jack Ruby. Told friends she'd "break the JFK case wide open." Found dead. Her investigation file vanished forever.

  • Gary Webb

    Age 49. Two gunshots to the head, ruled suicide. Proved CIA flooded Black neighborhoods with crack cocaine. LA Times assigned 17 reporters to destroy him.

  • Pat Tillman

    Age 27. NFL star. Three bullets to forehead in tight grouping from 10 yards by his own unit. Body armor, uniform, and diary all burned.

  • Frank Olson

    Age 43. CIA scientist pushed from 13th-floor hotel window after witnessing interrogation deaths. CIA manual: "Best assassination is a fall of 75 feet or more."

  • Daniel Anderl

    Age 20. Shot opening his front door to a fake FedEx driver. His mother, a judge, had received the Epstein-Deutsche Bank case exactly four days earlier.

  • Alexander Litvinenko

    Age 43. Polonium-210 slipped into his tea at a London hotel. Died over three agonizing weeks. Was investigating Putin's role in bombings that killed hundreds.

  • Victor Jara

    Age 40. Chile's beloved singer. Soldiers crushed his fingers, threw him a guitar: "Now sing." He sang. Then they machine-gunned him with 44 bullets.

  • Patrice Lumumba

    Age 35. Congo's first elected leader. CIA sent poison for his toothpaste. Executed, dissolved in acid. A Belgian officer kept his gold tooth for 38 years.

  • Barry Seal

    Age 46. CIA drug pilot turned informant. His lawyer told the judge: that ruling is a death sentence. Machine-gunned in his car three weeks later.

  • Enrique Camarena

    Age 37. DEA agent. Tortured 30+ hours. Skull drilled with power tool. Doctor injected stimulants to keep him conscious. He'd discovered CIA-cartel drug flights.

  • Mohsen Fakhrizadeh

    Age 62. First known robot assassination. AI-controlled machine gun with facial recognition fired 15 rounds via satellite. Wife sitting beside him was untouched.

  • Georgi Markov

    Age 49. Stabbed with a ricin-tipped umbrella on a London bridge. Platinum pellet smaller than a pinhead. Died three days later. It was the dictator's birthday gift.

  • Mary Pinchot Meyer

    Age 43. JFK's mistress. Two shots—head and heart—on Georgetown towpath. CIA chief was picking her lock before the news broke. Diary destroyed.

  • Daphne Caruana Galizia

    Age 53. Mother of three. Car bomb detonated by text message, 30 minutes after her last blog post. Her son ran through the burning wreckage.

  • Thomas Bowers

    Age 55. Head of Deutsche Bank wealth management. Oversaw Epstein's accounts at two banks. Found hanged at home. FBI had been seeking to interview him.

  • Steve Biko

    Age 30. Beaten until brain-damaged in custody. Driven 740 miles naked and shackled. Doctors certified "no abnormality." The 46th to die in apartheid detention.

  • David Kelly

    Age 59. Britain's top weapons inspector. Said Iraq WMD dossier was "sexed up." Found dead in woods. Autopsy sealed until 2073. Paramedic: "More blood at a nosebleed."

  • Jean-Luc Brunel

    Age 75. Epstein's modeling agent. Tried to flip on Epstein with incriminating photos. Found hanged in his Paris prison cell at 1 AM. Same method as Epstein.

  • Sergei Magnitsky

    Age 37. Exposed $230 million government fraud. Handcuffed and beaten with rubber batons for an hour. Lost 40 pounds in prison. His case created laws in 35 countries.

  • Philip Marshall

    Former CIA pilot. Writing a book naming officials. Found shot alongside his children, ages 14 and 17, and the family dog. Ruled murder-suicide. No note.

  • Oscar Romero

    Age 62. Archbishop shot through the heart while saying Mass. Ordered soldiers to stop killing. Six days later, snipers fired into his funeral, killing 40.

  • Thomas Sankara

    Age 37. Africa's most beloved president. Earned $450/month. Vaccinated 2.5 million children. Told colleagues "It's me they want" and walked out to face gunmen.

  • Alexei Navalny

    Age 47. Father of two. Already survived Novichok poisoning. Died in Arctic prison from exotic frog toxin. Tricked his FSB poisoner into confessing on a recorded call.

  • Boris Nemtsov

    Age 55. Shot four times within sight of the Kremlin. Every camera on Moscow's most surveilled bridge was "under maintenance." Was proving Russian soldiers were in Ukraine.

  • Kim Jong-nam

    Age 45. VX nerve agent smeared on his face at an airport by two women told it was a prank show. Paid $100 each. He carried the antidote.

  • Anna Politkovskaya

    Age 48. Shot four times in her elevator. Killed on Putin's birthday as a "gift." The journalist investigating her murder was poisoned with polonium weeks later.

  • Natacha Jaitt

    Age 41. Exposed child trafficking on Argentine national TV. Tweeted: "I won't kill myself or drown in a bathtub. If it happens, it wasn't me." Found dead.

  • Craig Spence

    Age 49. Ran DC sexual blackmail ring wired by CIA. Arranged midnight White House tour with a 15-year-old boy. Found dead at the Ritz-Carlton before grand jury testimony.

  • Orlando Letelier

    Age 44. Car bomb on Embassy Row, DC—two miles from the White House. Both legs severed. Kissinger blocked a warning five days earlier.

  • Aaron Swartz

    Age 26. Reddit co-founder. Found hanged. MIT prosecuted him while secretly taking $850,000 from Epstein. His father: "He was killed by the government."

  • Michael Hastings

    Age 33. Brought down a NATO commander. Car exploded at 4 AM, engine ejected 200 feet. Had emailed: "I'm onto a big story." Was investigating the CIA director.

  • Yevgeny Prigozhin

    Age 62. Led armed march on Moscow. Putin called it "treason" and promised "inevitable punishment." Plane bombed at 28,000 feet exactly two months later.

  • Gerald Bull

    Age 62. World's greatest ballistics genius. Shot five times outside his apartment. $20,000 cash untouched. Was building a supergun for Saddam Hussein. Never solved.

  • Dag Hammarskjold

    Age 56. UN Secretary-General. Plane crashed with ace of spades card tucked in his collar. NSA intercepted a pilot's radio reporting he opened fire.

  • Che Guevara

    Age 39. Executed in a Bolivian schoolhouse. CIA operative relayed the kill order. Last words: "Shoot, coward—you are only going to kill a man." Hands amputated.

  • Robert Maxwell

    Age 68. Ghislaine's father. Fell from his yacht. Alleged triple agent for Mossad, MI6, and KGB. Six intelligence chiefs attended his funeral. Died before fraud exposed.

  • Diana Spencer

    Age 36. Mother of William and Harry. Wrote a note predicting "an accident in my car." All tunnel cameras offline that night. Inquest jury: "unlawful killing."

  • Jill Dando

    Age 37. BBC presenter. Execution-style gunshot to the temple on her doorstep. Had compiled a BBC pedophile ring dossier years before Savile was exposed. Unsolved.

  • Sabrina Bittencourt

    Age 38. Mother of three. Exposed "John of God" baby farms—girls forced to birth babies sold for $50,000. Son posted: "They killed my mother." No body found.

  • Nancy Schaefer

    Age 73. Married 52 years. State senator exposing CPS child trafficking. Shot in the back while sleeping. Murder weapon untraceable. Days from completing a documentary.

  • John Ashe

    Age 61. UN General Assembly president. Barbell crushed his throat bench pressing alone. Days from court testimony. The UN initially lied, calling it a "heart attack."

  • Daniel Pearl

    Age 38. Wall Street Journal reporter. Beheaded investigating ISI-Al Qaeda links. His kidnapper had ties to both MI6 and Pakistani intelligence. Wife six months pregnant.

  • Jan Kuciak

    Age 27. Shot alongside his fiancee Martina, also 27, who had no connection to journalism. Was exposing Italian mafia infiltration of the Slovak government.

  • Berta Caceres

    Age 44. Goldman Prize winner. Defeated the world's largest dam builder to protect indigenous land. Shot at home two days before her birthday. Mastermind: a West Point grad.

  • Mark Lombardi

    Age 48. Artist who hand-drew maps connecting CIA, Bush, and bin Laden. Found hanged. After 9/11, FBI visited the museum to study his diagrams. Hard drives vanished.

  • Salvador Allende

    Age 65. Democratically elected president of Chile. Nixon: "Make the economy scream." Died defending his bombed palace during CIA-backed coup. Pinochet tortured 40,000.

  • William Colby

    Age 76. CIA Director who gave Congress the agency's darkest secrets. Kissinger called him a "psychopath." Found drowned. Left behind half-eaten dinner, computer running.

  • Bill Cooper

    Age 58. Predicted 9/11 by name on his radio show, 10 weeks before it happened. Said: "They'll shoot me on my doorstep." Shot dead two months after 9/11.

  • Steven Hoffenberg

    Age 77. Epstein's early partner. Publicly confessed the honey-trap blackmail operation. Found decomposed, dead at least 7 days. Part of the 2022 death cluster.

  • Ruslana Korshunova

    Age 20. Model documented on Epstein's plane. Fell from 9th floor in Manhattan. No drugs, no note. Another model from the same group died identically a year later.

  • Chester Bennington

    Age 41. Linkin Park frontman. Childhood sex abuse survivor. Found hanged on Chris Cornell's birthday—exactly two months after Cornell died the same way.

  • Anthony Bourdain

    Age 61. Found hanged in a French hotel. No drugs in his system. No warning signs. His closest friend: "There were absolutely no signs." Mother confirmed the same.

  • Philip Haney

    Age 66. DHS officer who testified Obama ordered him to delete terrorist files. Found shot in a parking lot. Was engaged, planning a wedding. "Never believe suicide."

  • Serena Shim

    Age 29. Documented ISIS fighters in UN food trucks crossing Turkey's border. Turkish intelligence accused her of espionage. Head-on collision with cement mixer two days later.

  • Tracy Twyman

    Age 41. Continued Isaac Kappy's Epstein research after he died. Recorded dead man's switch video documenting threats. Found hanged one month before Epstein's arrest.

  • Isaac Kappy

    Age 42. Accused Hollywood figures of pedophilia. Claimed hacked Epstein files. Fell from Arizona bridge exactly 60 days before Epstein's arrest. "If I die, it wasn't suicide."

  • Vince Foster

    Age 48. Clinton's deputy counsel. Shot in mouth at Fort Marcy Park. Files removed from office before investigators arrived. Wrote: "Ruining people is considered sport."

  • Nikolai Glushkov

    Age 68. Russian exile in London. Strangled from behind, staged as hanging. Forensics exposed the staging. Killed one week after the Skripal Novichok attack.

  • Ravil Maganov

    Age 67. Chairman of Russia's largest private oil company. Called for ending the Ukraine war. Fell from 6th-floor hospital window. Eighth Russian energy exec to die that year.

  • Andrew Breitbart

    Age 43. Tweeted about Podesta's "underage sex slave op" coverup. Collapsed walking near home. Body was bright red. Coroner's technician died of arsenic weeks later.

  • Ngo Dinh Diem

    Age 62. South Vietnam's president. CIA funded the coup. Promised safe passage from a church, then bayoneted in an armored vehicle. JFK was killed 20 days later.

  • Olof Palme

    Age 59. Swedish Prime Minister. Shot in the back walking home from a cinema. 34-year investigation, 10,000 interviews, 134 false confessions. Still unsolved.

  • Seth Rich

    Age 27. DNC staffer. Shot twice in the back at 4 AM walking home in DC. Nothing stolen—wallet, watch, phone all left. Murder unsolved nearly a decade later.

  • Chris Cornell

    Age 52. Soundgarden frontman. Found hanged after a concert in Detroit. Wife hired forensic pathologist who concluded investigation was prematurely closed.

  • John Deroo

    Shot six times in the face. Killer Berry Kessler also murdered the man whose job Epstein took at Wexner's firm. Kessler proved Epstein's network used contract killers.

  • Roy Den Hollander

    Age 72. Former CIA/Kroll operative with Kremlin ties. Shot Judge Salas's son four days after she got the Epstein-Deutsche Bank case. Dead within 24 hours—no interrogation.

  • Deborah Jeane Palfrey

    Age 52. The "DC Madam" whose records could expose Washington's powerful. Told her mother and lawyer she'd never kill herself. Found hanged before trial.

  • Al Seckel

    Optical illusion expert who attended Epstein's dinners with scientists. Found at the base of a cliff in France. A conduit between Epstein and the academic world.

  • Yuri Shchekochikhin

    Russian journalist. Skin peeled off, hair fell out, organs failed—classic thallium poisoning. Medical records classified as state secret. Was investigating FSB corruption.

  • Maxim Kuzminov

    Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine with a military helicopter. Shot and run over in Spain. Face deliberately disfigured to delay identification.

  • Monica Petersen

    Age 32. Researcher investigating child trafficking in Haiti. Found dead, ruled suicide. Was connecting Clinton Foundation activities to trafficking networks. No details released.

  • Trevor Moore

    Age 41. Comedian. Father of a young son. Used comedy to expose Epstein connections to millions on national TV. Fell from second-story balcony at 2:30 AM.