Trump Approves Firing-Squad Execution for Fort Hood Gunman Nidal Hasan

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 (TodayViralUSA) — President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in a 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, the Pentagon said on Monday, clearing the way for what would be the first execution carried out by the U.S. military in more than six decades.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced the decision in a post on X, saying the recommendation had come from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and had been approved by the president. The secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution, Parnell said.

The U.S. military has not executed anyone since 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was hanged for the rape of an 11-year-old girl, according to the Associated Press. The BBC reported that an execution of Hasan would be the military’s first by firing squad since the end of World War Two.

Deadliest attack on a U.S. base

On Nov. 5, 2009, Hasan, then an Army major, opened fire inside a crowded medical processing building at Fort Hood where soldiers preparing to deploy were waiting for checkups and vaccinations. Thirteen people were killed and 32 others were wounded in what remains the deadliest non-combat attack on an American military installation.

A military jury of 13 officers convicted Hasan in 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder and unanimously recommended a death sentence. He represented himself at his court-martial, made little effort to mount a defense and acknowledged he was the gunman. He told the panel he had acted to protect Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and described himself as a soldier who had “switched sides,” the AP reported.

Years of appeals still possible

Under military law, a death sentence cannot be carried out without the president’s approval, appellate review and a final judgment on its legality. The president’s sign-off sets further procedural steps in motion, but Hasan could still delay the process, potentially for years, by filing a habeas corpus petition in the civilian federal courts, according to an article published in May in the journal Army Lawyer and cited by the AP.

Military death sentences are rare and executions rarer still. Hasan is one of four men currently held on the military’s death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. President George W. Bush approved the execution of Army Spc. Ronald Gray in 2008, but a federal judge put it on hold and Gray remains in custody.

The military death penalty was struck down by the U.S. Court of Military Appeals in 1983 and restored the following year through an executive order issued by President Ronald Reagan, the BBC noted.

Death penalty under scrutiny

The decision comes days after a failed lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee led the state’s governor to suspend further executions this year and order an independent review. Asked whether the episode would lead him to seek changes to capital punishment, Trump called it “an interesting situation” and said lethal injections “shouldn’t be very difficult,” according to the AP.

Firing-squad executions remain uncommon in the United States. South Carolina carried one out last year, the first use of the method in the country in 15 years, and Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah also permit it, the BBC reported.

Trump restored the federal death penalty through an executive order on the first day of his second term in January 2025, after the Biden administration’s Justice Department imposed a moratorium. During his first term, the federal government executed 13 people between 2020 and early 2021.