After the Secretary of War’s recommendation, Donald Trump has approved the use of a firing squad for the execution of former military psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009.
The firing squad execution would be the first time the method has been used in the US military since World War II, and the first death penalty execution of an armed service member in 65 years.
A US-born citizen of Palestinian descent, Hasan said he was targeting soldiers he was set to deploy with to Afghanistan. Hasan entered a soldier readiness center at the base on Nov. 5, 2009, and opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun as troops prepared for deployments overseas. He was shot, wounded, and paralyzed from the waist down during the attack, as a police officer ended the rampage.
Hasan was convicted in July 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder by a military jury panel of 13 officers, which unanimously recommended his death sentence. Hasan acted as his own attorney, and told jurors he had changed sides in what he called an American war against Islam.
Prosecutors alleged he was motivated by unwillingness to be deployed to Afghanistan and by a sense of duty to jihad to kill as many American soldiers as possible, though a Joint Terrorism Task Force determined that he “was not involved in terrorist activities or terrorist planning,” and authorities said he acted alone.
Army Pvt. John Bennett was the last service member to be executed by the U.S. military — in 1961 by hanging. Pvt. Eddie Slovik was the last service member to be executed by firing squad in 1945, for desertion during World War II.