Trump approves firing squad for the execution of the 2009 Fort Hood shooter

The Army will execute Nidal Hasan via firing squad, the Department of Defense announced Monday night. Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was convicted of carrying out a mass shooting at Fort Hood in 2009, killing 13 people before being stopped.

The use of a firing squad was approved by President Donald Trump, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on X. Trump’s approval came after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the method to the president, Parnell said. It will be the first time a firing squad has been used on a member of the U.S. military in an execution in decades.

According to Parnell, the Secretary of the Army will “set the time and place for the execution.” That post is currently vacant following the resignation of Dan Driscoll in September; Adam Telle is currently serving as the acting secretary.

As per policy under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, executions have to be approved by the president.

Hasan is one of four former soldiers on military death row. He and the others are imprisoned at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Hasan, who had served as an Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people — 12 soldiers and one civilian — and wounded nearly three dozen others in 2009. He entered a medical facility at the Texas base, shouting the Arabic words for “God is great,” and opened fire. He was shot and arrested. The former Army major was sentenced to death in 2013. 

In January 2025, Trump issued an executive order to restore the death penalty. This June, Army officials confirmed plans to carry out executions of military prisoners on death row if the president approved them. The plan, dubbed “Operation Resolute Justice,” calls for transporting the death row prisoners from Fort Leavenworth to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terre Haute, Indiana, where they will then be killed. It is not immediately clear if that is where Hasan’s execution is set to take place.

If the execution proceeds as planned, Hasan will be the first soldier executed by the state in more than 60 years and the first killed via firing squad in 81 years. Pvt. John Bennett was executed via hanging in 1961 after being convicted of the rape and attempted murder of a child. Pvt. Eddie Slovik was executed by firing squad in 1945, after being court-martialed for desertion during World War II; Slovik was the only service member killed for desertion during the war.

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