President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, the former US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in a 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, the Pentagon said Monday.
Hasan’s execution will be the first carried out by the US military since 1961. The attack also wounded more than two dozen people.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on X.
“The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come,” Parnell wrote.
Hasan was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 for carrying out the mass shooting, which prosecutors said was inspired by Al-Qaeda.
He represented himself during the trial, calling no witnesses and giving no testimony. He did not contest the charges, and his court-appointed defense attorneys expressed concern that he was seeking execution.
Hasan, a US-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, opened fire on November 5, 2009, at a medical facility on the sprawling Fort Hood military base, which served as a staging point for troops deploying to combat zones.
Twelve of those killed and 30 of the wounded were soldiers. Hasan was shot by a civilian police officer who responded to the attack and was left partially paralyzed.
During the trial, the court heard that Hasan opposed the US military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. He had also communicated online with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born radical cleric and alleged Al-Qaeda figure who was later killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.
AFP
