He is also said to have helped Mehmet Ali Ağca murder the left-wing newspaper editor Abdi İpekçi on 1 January 1979, in Istanbul, and helped Ağca escape from an Istanbul military prison later that year. According to investigative journalist Lucy Komisar, Çatlı "reportedly helped organize Ağca's escape from an Istanbul military prison, and some have suggested Çatlı was even involved in the 1981 Pope's assassination attempt". In February 1982, he was caught with heroin in Switzerland, but he managed to escape detention. 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. In 1985 in Rome, Çatlı 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".