Trump approves firing squad for Fort Hood shooter; execution set for December 3

President Donald Trump has approved death by firing squad for Nidal Hasan, the former Army major convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. The Pentagon announced Monday night that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recommended the method and Trump approved it. On Tuesday, acting Army Secretary Adam Telle set the execution for December 3 at Fort Hood, the same base where the attack happened nearly 17 years ago.

The facts of the case are not in dispute. On November 5, 2009, Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, opened fire inside the base's Soldier Readiness Processing Center, killing 12 soldiers and one civilian and wounding 32 others. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the attack. Hasan told the court martial he acted to stop American troops from deploying to Afghanistan, describing himself as a soldier who had switched sides. A military jury convicted him in August 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder and unanimously recommended the death sentence. He has been on military death row ever since.

If it is carried out, the execution would be the first by the US military since 1961, when Army Private John Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the first military firing squad execution since World War II. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a military death sentence cannot be carried out without presidential approval. Hasan can still challenge the execution through a habeas corpus appeal in the federal courts, a process the AP notes could delay it for years.

The decision caps a year in which the administration has moved aggressively on capital punishment. ABC News reported in June that the Army was preparing to resume executions if Trump gave approval, and the administration recently added the firing squad, electrocution, and gas to the permissible federal execution methods. It also comes days after Tennessee's botched September 30 lethal injection attempt on Christa Pike. Parnell announced the decision on X: "Judgement day for Hasan has finally come." Hegseth replied with a single word: "Justice."