Murat Karayılan (Kurdish: Mirad Qarayîlan; born 5 June 1954), also nicknamed Cemal,[1] is one of the co-founders of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

[7] 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 of Derik, Muhammet Fatih Safitürk.

[11][12][13][14] 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.

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.

[18] The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution 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.