Trump orders firing squad execution for Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan

President Donald Trump has authorised the execution of the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan by military firing squad.

The decision, announced by the Pentagon on Monday, marks the first US military execution in over 60 years, and the first time the armed forces will use a firing squad since the end of the Second World War.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the execution, which Trump then approved.

"The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution," Parnell said in a statement. "Judgement day for Hasan has finally come."

The 2009 Fort Hood attack

Hasan, a former US Army major and psychiatrist, opened fire inside a crowded medical building at the Texas military base on 5 November 2009. He killed 13 people and injured 32 others who were awaiting medical clearance before deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The killings remain the deadliest non-combat attack ever carried out on a domestic US military installation. Hasan was shot and partially paralysed by a civilian police officer during the attack.

At his court-martial in 2013, Hasan represented himself, called no witnesses, and offered no defence. He later admitted to the killings, claiming he was acting to protect Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan. He had also communicated online with Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical US-born al-Qaeda propagandist later killed in a US drone strike.

A jury of 13 military officers unanimously convicted Hasan of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder, recommending the death penalty.

How military executions work

Hasan is one of four prisoners currently on the US military's death row. Under military law, any execution of a service member requires the personal approval of the US president.

The US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces ruled the military death penalty unconstitutional in 1983, but President Ronald Reagan reinstated it via executive order the following year. However, the military has not actually executed a prisoner since 1961.

While individual US states carry out capital punishment—primarily via lethal injection—the military system is distinct. Firing squads are exceptionally rare in the United States, although a handful of states, including South Carolina, Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah, still permit them. South Carolina carried out an execution by firing squad last year, the first in the country for 15 years.

Trump has long championed the death penalty, restoring its use at the federal level by executive order on his first day in office in January 2025, which reversed a moratorium imposed during the Biden administration.