He was a hitman for the state, and was involved in the killings of suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA).

[9] In 1998 the magazine Le 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.

[2] In 1985 in Rome, Çatlı declared to a judge "that he had been contacted by the BND, the German intelligence agency, [which had] promised him a nice sum of money if he implicated the Russian and Bulgarian services in the assassination attempt against the Pope".

[11] Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Çiller declared on 4 October 1993: "We know the list of businessmen and artists subjected to racketeering by the PKK and we shall be bringing their members to account."

Beginning on 14 January 1994, almost a hundred people were kidnapped by commandos wearing uniforms and travelling in police vehicles and then killed somewhere along the road from Ankara to Istanbul.

[11] Sedat Bucak, a Member of Parliament of the True Path Party (DYP) for Şanlıurfa province and a Kurdish village guards leader, was the sole person to survive the crash.

[9][15][11] At the time of his death, Çatlı was a convicted fugitive, wanted for drug trafficking and murder but carried on him 6 different identifications of which one was an official diplomatic passport on the name Mehmet Özbay.

[9] Alparslan Türkeş, the founder of the Grey Wolves and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and a former deputy prime minister of Turkey, admitted to know Çatlı had been cooperated with Turkish authorities for the well-being of the state.

[23] 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.

"[25] Another book was written by Soner Yalçın and Doğan Yurdakul, titled Reis: Gladio'nun Türk Tetikçisi ("The Chief: Gladio's Turkish Hitman").