US President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army major and psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. If carried out, it would be the first US military execution since 1961 and the first by firing squad in the military since World War Two, according to the sources.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced the decision on X, saying Secretary of War Pete Hegseth had recommended the method and Trump had approved it. The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place. "Judgement day for Hasan has finally come," Parnell wrote. No reason has been given for the choice of method. Military law requires presidential approval for an execution, as well as appellate review and a final judgment on its legality.
Hasan opened fire on 5 November 2009 in a crowded medical building at Fort Hood, a large Army base in central Texas, where soldiers preparing to deploy were waiting for check-ups and vaccinations. Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 wounded, making it the deadliest non-combat attack on a US military base. A civilian police officer shot Hasan, leaving him partially paralysed. At his 2013 court-martial he represented himself, called no witnesses and said he was the gunman. He said he had acted to protect Muslims and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, and described himself as a soldier who had "switched sides." Court-appointed defence lawyers feared he wanted to be sentenced to death. A panel of 13 officers convicted him of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 of attempted murder, and unanimously recommended execution. The court also heard that he had communicated online with Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born al-Qaeda preacher later killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.
The path to an execution may be long. According to an article in the magazine Army Lawyer, Hasan could put the process on hold, potentially for years, by filing a habeas corpus appeal in the civilian federal courts. There is precedent for delay: President George W. Bush approved the execution of Army Spc. Ronald Gray in 2008, but a judge put it on hold and Gray remains on death row. Hasan is one of four men on the military's death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The last person executed by the military, Pvt. John Bennett, was hanged in 1961 for raping an 11-year-old girl.
The announcement comes as capital punishment is under scrutiny in the US. Tennessee's governor halted further executions this year and ordered an independent review after an attempt to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection failed; she reportedly survived two injections and is in a coma. Asked about it, Trump called it "an interesting situation" and said carrying out lethal injections "shouldn't be very difficult." Trump resumed federal executions after an informal moratorium, with 13 carried out between 2020 and early 2021. Firing squads remain rare: South Carolina used one last year, the first in the US in 15 years, and four other states permit the method. Twenty-seven states, the federal government and the military retain the death penalty.