Abdullah "Apo" Öcalan (born April 4, 1948) is a Kurdish militant leader, who in 1978 founded the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by a number of states and organizations, and has been leading an armed campaign inside Turkey since 1984, with the intent of creating an independent Kurdish state. Öcalan has been imprisoned by the Turkish state since 1999 on İmralı Island in the Turkish Sea of Marmara.

Abdullah Öcalan was born in Ömerli, a village in Halfeti, Şanlıurfa Province, in the Eastern part of Turkey.

After graduating from a vocational high school in Ankara (Turkish: Ankara Tapu-Kadastro Meslek Lisesi), Öcalan entered the Diyarbakir Title Deeds Office. In an unusual turn of events, he was relocated one month later to Bakırköy, Istanbul. Later, he entered Istanbul Law Faculty but transferred after the first year to Ankara University to study political science. His return to Ankara (normally impossible given his condition) was facilitated by the state in order to divide a militant group, Dev-Genç. President Süleyman Demirel later regretted this decision, since the PKK was to become a much greater threat to the state than Dev-Genç.