The fiancé of murdered Saudi journalist and Washington Publish columnist Jamal Khashoggi condemned the gamers who chose to tee it up at LIV Golf’s inaugural adventure.

LIV Golf, a collection fronted through retired golf nice Greg Norman, drew a couple of distinguished PGA Tour gamers to its first experience regardless of the financial backing it acquired from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The fund is overseen by way of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, — so stars like Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and others are under scrutiny for taking beneficial contracts to take part within the inaugural regardless of Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses.

Due to the fact LIV Golf is bankrolled by means of Salman’s group, much of the controversy revolves across the truth U.S. intelligence assessed years ago that the crown prince licensed the plot to have Khashoggi murdered on the Saudi embassy in Turkey. USA TODAY reached out to Khashoggi’s fiance, Hatice Cengiz, for her thoughts, and she or he known as for each LIV participant to be banned from golf’s 4 majors — The Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and the British Open.

“If they nonetheless raise on and play as if the whole thing is commonplace, then they should be banned from taking part in on the planet’s main tournaments,’’ Cengiz stated. “This may occasionally express that there are penalties for assisting murderers, and it’ll express the murderers that they don’t seem to be escaping justice.”

The LIV gamers have been suspended by way of the PGA Tour, but the Tour does not regulate golf’s 4 majors. The U.S. Open starts on Thursday in Massachusetts, and the United States Golf Association, which runs that event, has mentioned it’ll allow those who have signed with LIV Golf to compete. The organizations which oversee the opposite majors have, in the intervening time, stayed mum.

Mickelson and Johnson have stated Saudi Arabia’s transgressions throughout the controversy, but considering the fact that they’ve defended their involvement with LIV Golf, Cengiz told USA TODAY “If the avid gamers and organizers say they oppose human rights violations, they should act on that. Otherwise their words are empty — best said to try to make themselves look better and not to exchange the rest in Saudi Arabia.”

“They should be insisting on justice for Jamal and the countless individuals targeted and abused in the Kingdom,” she mentioned, “and they will have to no longer be taking part in sports activities paid for by way of the very abusers.”

The publish Jamal Khashoggi’s Widow Calls for Golf’s Majors to Ban Phil Mickelson, Saudi Tour Players: ‘There Are Penalties for Assisting Murderers’ first seemed on Mediaite.