Trump Approves Firing Squad for Fort Hood Killer Nidal Hasan
The Pentagon announced Monday night that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the method and President Trump approved it. It would be the first execution carried out by the U.S. military since 1961.
President Donald Trump has approved death by firing squad for Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 attack at Fort Hood, Texas. The Pentagon announced the decision Monday night.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the method, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on X. “The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution,” Parnell wrote. Hegseth replied to the post with a single word: “Justice.”
Hasan, 56, walked into the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009, and opened fire on soldiers preparing for deployment. Twelve service members and one civilian were killed. Thirty-two others were wounded. Parnell said Hasan was shouting “Allahu Akbar” during the attack.
A military jury convicted Hasan in 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. He represented himself at the court-martial. He was sentenced to death and has been held on military death row at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, ever since.
Hasan exhausted his appeals in 2025, which cleared the way for a president to approve the sentence. Hegseth said last month that he was committed to seeing it carried out.
If it goes ahead, the execution would be the first by the U.S. military since 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth. Firing squads are rare in the United States. South Carolina used one for three executions in 2025 — the first in the country since 2010.
No date has been set. The Army now has to build the infrastructure and protocols for an execution it has not carried out in more than six decades.
