A patrol affiliated with the General Security in the city of Afrin, north of Aleppo, arrested a 76-year-old Kurdish man following a dispute with a person who has been residing in his family’s home for several years. Despite the submission of a request for his release and the withdrawal of the personal complaint, the investigating judge kept him in detention and ordered his transfer to the central prison, in an incident that raises questions about guarantees of justice and consideration of the conditions of elderly persons in detention procedures.
On 8 March 2026, a patrol from the General Security arrested the elderly man Khalil Nabo Nasseru (76), a resident of the village of Sheikh al-Deir, affiliated with Jindires in the Afrin countryside, and took him to the General Security headquarters in the city of Afrin.
The arrest came following a dispute between him and a person named Salah al-Haji, originally from the Tal al-Daman area in the southern countryside of Aleppo, who has been living for years in a house belonging to the elderly man’s family. Following the incident, the latter filed a complaint accusing Nasseru of threatening to kill him.
The roots of the dispute date back to 2012, when the Afrin region received displaced persons from other Syrian areas, and entry into the area required a local guarantor. According to sources, Khalil Nasseru, who at the time held the position of village mukhtar or head of the komin (local council), acted as a guarantor for Salah al-Haji and allowed him to reside in his son’s house, in addition to providing him with financial and in-kind assistance.
In 2018, following the takeover of the Afrin region by Turkish forces and Turkish-backed Syrian factions during Operation Olive Branch, Nasseru and his family were forced to flee toward the Shahba region after he handed the house key to the same individual.
Information indicates that during the family’s absence, the house was emptied of its contents and its furniture and some of its belongings were sold.
After Khalil Nasseru returned to his village about eight months ago, he demanded that his son’s house be vacated and that the furniture and sums of money which he said Salah had borrowed from him be returned. On 8 March, the two parties met in the market, where a verbal altercation broke out between them, followed by the filing of a complaint that led to the arrest of the elderly man.
The patrol that carried out the arrest also confiscated an excavator that had been operating in front of Nasseru’s house to drill an artesian well, and detained the machine and its operator on the grounds of a legal violation.
Nasseru was questioned before the investigating judge at the Afrin Court, and it was expected that he would be released on Wednesday, 11 March, after a request for release was submitted and the personal claim was withdrawn. However, the judge rejected the request and issued a decision to transfer him to Ma‘ratā Central Prison in Afrin, where he remains detained to this day.
source: Rights Monitor Syria
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