Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced Monday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended — and President Trump approved — execution by U.S. Army firing squad for Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army major convicted of the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting.
Hasan, 56, killed 13 people and wounded 32 others in November 2009, the deadliest mass shooting ever on an American military base. A former Army psychiatrist, he was convicted at court-martial in 2013. He admitted to the shooting at trial, saying he carried it out in support of the Taliban.
If carried out, it would be the first U.S. military execution since 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth, and the first by Army firing squad since January 31, 1945 — the World War II execution of Pvt. Eddie Slovik. No date has been set; the Secretary of the Army will determine the time and place.
