Trump approves firing squad for Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, Pentagon says

Right · 2Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced on Monday 5 October that President Donald Trump has approved death by U.S. Army firing squad for Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting. 1 2 Right · 2Parnell wrote on X that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom the Pentagon now styles Secretary of War, had recommended the method and that the Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. 2 3 Right · 2Parnell called Hasan a "convicted terrorist" and "jihadist" who fired on unarmed soldiers while shouting "Allahu Akbar", and said: "Judgement day for Hasan has finally come." 1 2

Right · 2The outlets give the toll as 13 killed and 32 wounded; the New York Post says 12 service members and one civilian died, while the Washington Examiner also says 14 died, including an unborn baby, and that Hasan was convicted on 13 counts of murder. 1 2 Right · 1Hasan, a former Army major and psychiatrist, was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013, is held at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and lost his final appeal in early 2025, according to the Washington Examiner. 2 Right · 1The Examiner says Hasan would be the first soldier executed after a court-martial since Pvt. John Bennett was hanged in 1961, and that Hegseth had asked Trump to approve the execution about a year earlier, telling the paper he was "100% committed" to carrying out the sentence. 2

Right · 1Fox News links the decision to a Justice Department announcement that it is readopting the firing squad as a means of execution; no date for the execution has been given. 3 Left · 1ABC News reported that Army policy requires an execution to take place within 150 days of the president's approval but no sooner than 60 days; the time and place have not been announced. 4 Mixed · 2Hasan represented himself at trial, called no witnesses and gave no testimony, and his court-appointed standby attorneys worried he was seeking the death penalty; the Supreme Court declined to review his case last year, and CBS said it had asked his attorney for comment. 5 6

Mixed · 2Coverage describes the attack as Al-Qaeda inspired: the trial court heard Hasan opposed the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and had spoken online with cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, while the Daily Mail notes the Defense Department classed the attack as workplace violence, not terrorism. 6 7 Mixed · 2CBS and the Daily Mail place the decision in a wider push on capital punishment: South Carolina carried out three firing-squad executions last year, and the Justice Department, under Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, said earlier this year it would adopt firing squads among permitted federal methods, which the Death Penalty Information Center says the federal government has not previously included. 5 7 Right · 1Hegseth reposted Parnell's message on X with the single word "Justice." 7