The Trump administration has approved a plan to execute former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan — who killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in 2009 — by firing squad, Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said Monday evening.
Parnell said on social media that the plan to use an army firing squad was recommended by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and approved by President Trump.
“The Secretary of the Army will appoint the time and place of execution. The day of reckoning for Hasan has finally arrived,” Parnell wrote.
CBS News has reached out to Hasan’s attorney for comment.
According to According to an email sent to the victims’ families and obtained Tuesday by CBS News Texas, the execution is scheduled for Dec. 3. When CBS News Texas contacted Fort Hood for comment, it was directed to Army headquarters.
A former army psychiatrist, Hasan was convicted of murdering 13 people and injuring more than 30 during a court martial in 2013. Hasan recognized at trial that he was responsible for the shooting, saying he opened fire on members of the military in an attempt to protect Islamic insurgents from U.S. military forces. He was sentenced to death.
Hasan’s case could mark the military’s first execution of a U.S. service member since 1961, when a soldier was hanged for raping and attempting to murder an 11-year-old girl.
It would also mark a rare use of a firing squad. The method was used in South Carolina three times last year, marking the first executions by firing squad since 2010.
The federal government generally uses lethal injection when sentencing civilians to death. Earlier this year, the Justice Department said federal officials should consider other methods, including firing squads, electrocution and lethal gas.
Hegseth’s decision comes after a lengthy appeal process for Hasan. He chose to represent himself at trial and, in an unusual turn of events, he clashed with his own court-appointed lawyerswho feared that Hasan was intentionally seeking the death penalty.
Hasan asked the Supreme Court to review his case in 2024, arguing that the judge violated his right to a public trial by expelling the public from the courtroom before discussing some of his issues with lawyers. The High Court declined to take up the issue last year.
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