Murat Karayılan (; born 5 June 1954), also nicknamed Cemal, is one of the co-founders of the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, isDespite the PKK's 12th Congress announcing plans for total organisational dissolution, the PKK has not yet been dissolved de facto or de jure. a Kurds, Kurdish militant political organization and armed ...

(PKK). He became the PKK's acting leader after its original founder and leader,

Abdullah Öcalan Abdullah Öcalan ( ; ; born 4 April 1948 or 1949), also known as Apo (short for Abdullah in Turkish; Kurdish for "uncle"), is a founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Öcalan was based in Syria from 1979 to 1998. He ...

, was captured in 1999 by Turkish intelligence agents. In 2014, he left the PKK leader position and was assigned as the new commander-in-chief of the PKK's armed wing, the

People's Defence Forces The People's Defence Forces (, HPG) was the military wing of the group Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). During the 7th Congress of the PKK in January 2000, the HPG replaced the former military wing of the PKK, the People's Liberation Army of Ku ...

Biography

Karayılan was born on 5 June 1954,Murat Karayılan yakalandı mı?
, 13 August 2011 in

Birecik Birecik is a municipality and district of Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey. Its area is 912 km2, and its population is 93,866 (2023). It lies on the Euphrates. Built on a limestone cliff 400 ft. high on the left/east bank of the Euphrates, " ...

Şanlıurfa Urfa, officially called Şanlıurfa (), is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. The city was known as Edessa from Hellenistic times and into Christian times. Urfa is situated on a plain about east of the Eup ...

, Karayılan finished his studies at a vocational college of machinery and joined the

(PKK) in 1979. He was active in his native province of

until he fled to

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

at the time of the

1980 Turkish coup d'état The 1980 Turkish coup d'état (), headed by Chief of the General Staff General Kenan Evren, was the third coup d'état in the history of the Republic of Turkey, the previous having been the 1960 coup and the 1971 coup by memorandum. During ...

. He called on

Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

to stop serving in the military of Turkey, stop paying taxes and stop using the

Turkish language Turkish ( , , also known as 'Turkish of Turkey') is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, a member of Oghuz languages, Oghuz branch with around 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and one of two official languag ...

. On 13 December 2016, the Mardin 1st Criminal Court of Peace issued a detention warrant for Karayılan and Duran Kalkan, another PKK commander, as part of an investigation into the killing of the

Kaymakam Kaymakam, also known by #Names, many other romanizations, was a title used by various officials of the Ottoman Empire, including acting grand viziers, governors of provincial sanjaks, and administrators of district kazas. The title has been reta ...

Derik Derik () is a municipality and district of Mardin Province, Turkey. Its area is 1,381 km2, and its population is 62,028 (2022). History The town is first mentioned in the late 14th century, however a Roman fort indicates that the area has be ...

, Muhammet Fatih Safitürk. In March 2017, there were reports of a failed assassination attempt against Karayılan, but it was unclear as to whether the attempt was made by Turkish forces or a group within the PKK. Karayılan and two other PKK leaders were wanted by the

government of the United States The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, execut ...

and the

government of Turkey The Government of Turkey () is the Central government, national government of Turkey. It is governed as a unitary state under a presidential system, presidential representative democracy and a Constitution of Turkey, constitutional republic wit ...

; the PKK is considered a terrorist organization by the United States European Union and Turkey. PKK-affiliated groups operating in Iraq have been accused by human rights organisations of recruiting child soldiers. From 28 October 2015, he was in the red category of the "most wanted terrorists" list published by the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Turkey. The Ministry offered a reward of up to 10 million ₺ for his capture. Murat Karayilan was also the author of a book called ''Bir Savaşın Anatomisi'' (Anatomy of War).

Suspicions of drug trafficking

On 14 October 2009, the

U.S. Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current U.S. government departments. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and ...

Office of Foreign Assets Control The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the United States Department of the Treasury, United States Treasury Department. It administers and enforces economic and trade economic sanctions, ...

(OFAC) designated senior leaders of the PKK as significant foreign narcotics traffickers: Karayılan, as head of the PKK, and high-ranking members Ali Rıza Altun and Zübeyir Aydar. Pursuant to the Kingpin Act, the designation froze any assets the designees may have had under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibited U.S. citizens from conducting financial or commercial transactions with them. As of 2011, Karayılan still had the designation. The German

Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution ( or BfV, often ''Bundesverfassungsschutz'') is Germany's federal domestic intelligence agency. Together with the Landesämter für Verfassungsschutz (LfV) at the state level, the fed ...

stated in the same year, that it had no evidence that the organisational structures of the PKK were directly involved in drug trafficking in Germany.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Karayilan, Murat 1954 births Living people People from Birecik Members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party Turkish Kurdish politicians Kurdish revolutionaries Apoists 21st-century male writers Kurdish independence activists People charged with terrorism People of the Lebanese Civil War