Abdullah Çatlı (1956—November 3, 1996) was a Turkish convicted drug trafficker, and contract killer for the Counter-Guerrilla.[1][2] He led the youth branch of the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party (Turkish: Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP).[3]
He died in the Susurluk crash, revealing the depth of the state's complicity in organized crime.
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Growing up in Nevşehir, a small province in Central Anatolia, Çatlı was familiar with the views of the far right MHP, and Turkish ultra-nationalists. He was a hit man for the state, ordered to kill suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the ASALA.
Çatlı is claimed to be responsible, along with Haluk Kırcı, of the 9 October 1978 Bahçelievler Massacre during which seven university students, members of the Turkish Workers' Party, were murdered.[4] He is further said to have helped Mehmet Ali Ağca murder the left-wing newspaper editor Abdi İpekçi on 1 January 1979, in Istanbul,[5] and helped Ağca escape from an Istanbul military prison, in 1979.[4]
According to investigative journalist Lucy Komisar, Abdullah Çatlı "reportedly helped organize Agca's escape from an Istanbul military prison, and some have suggested Catli was even involved in the 1981 Pope's assassination attempt".[5] In 1998 the magazine Monde diplomatique alleged that Abdullah Çatlı had organized the assassination attempt "in exchange for the sum of 3 million German mark" for the Grey Wolves.[6] In 1985 in Rome, Catli declared to a judge "that he had been contacted by the BND, the German intelligence agency, promised him a nice sum of money if he implicated the Russian and Bulgarian services in the assassination attempt against the Pope".[3]
Çatlı was seen in the company of Stefano Delle Chiaie, an Italian neofascist who worked for Gladio, a secret NATO stay-behind paramilitary organization, while "touring Latin America, and on a visit to Miami in September 1982". He then went to France, where, under the alias of Hasan Kurtoglu, he planned a series of attacks on Armenian interests and on the ASALA, including the blowing up of the Armenian monument at Alfortville on 3 May 1984 and the attempted murder of activist Ara Toronian.[6][7]
According to founding Counter-Guerrilla Alparslan Türkeş, the founder of the Grey Wolves, "Çatlı has co-operated in the frame of a secret service working for the well-being of the state".[8]
Çatlı died in a car accident on 3 November 1996 in Susurluk, a town in the province of Balıkesir. With him in the car were Hüseyin Kocadağ (a famous police officer), Sedat Bucak (a Member of Parliament of the True Path Party for Şanlıurfa province), and Gonca Us (Abdullah Çatlı's girlfriend, a beauty queen-turned-mafia hitwoman). Sedat Bucak, a Kurdish warlord and village guards leader, was the sole person to survive the crash. His militia, funded by the Turkish state, was active against the PKK. The Susurluk scandal exposed the "deep state"; the underbelly of the government that some had dismissed as a paranoid conspiracy theory.
At the time of his death, Çatlı was a convicted fugitive, who had been wanted for drug trafficking and murder. The mafia chiefs of the Grey Wolves, and its infamous hit man Mehmet Ali Ağca, paid tribute at his funeral by presenting wreathes, as is traditional in Turkey. Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu of the far right Great Union Party was also present.[9]
His daughter Gökçen wrote a biography, referring to diaries stretching back ten years, in order to correct alleged inaccuracies that were circulated after his death.[10] Gökçen said "My father had his own understanding of justice. He was trying to achieve this justice with his group on behalf of his nation."[11]
Another book was written by Soner Yalçın and Doğan Yurdakul, titled Reis: Gladio'nun Türk Tetikçisi ("The Chief: Gladio's Turkish Hitman").
Çatlı's father was named Ahmet Çatlıoğlu; the "-oğlu" suffix is a patronymic. Çatlı had a brother, Zeki. He married his neighbor Meral Aydoğan on 10 August 1974.[12][13] On 22 May 1975 they had a daughter named Gökçen, who is currently a doctoral student in politics and international relations.[14] Later he had another daughter, Selcen.
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