Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, called out the players participating in LIV Golf during the league’s inaugural event this weekend, saying that those who competed in the Saudi-backed tour should not be allowed to play in the sport’s major tournaments.
“If they still carry on and play as if everything is normal, then they should be banned from playing in the world’s major tournaments,” Cengiz told USA TODAY Sports via email. “This will show that there are consequences for supporting murderers, and it will show the murderers that they are not escaping justice.”
Cengiz was engaged to Khashoggi—a Washington Post columnist–at the time of his assassination in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. A declassified U.S. intelligence report in 2021 accused Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, of approving an operation “to capture or kill” Khashoggi.
