Former US Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. [Reuters]
Former US Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. [Reuters]

The US Department of Defense has announced it will livestream the execution by firing squad of former Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an interview with conservative outlet Real America's Voice on Thursday (local time) that Hasan's execution would be "public, so people can watch," according to the Associated Press and Reuters.

Asked whether Hasan had made any last requests ahead of the execution, Hegseth said, "I don't care. Tune in Dec. 3." The Pentagon subsequently issued a statement confirming it would livestream the execution and said further details would be announced later.

Hegseth called the decision to execute by firing squad "an obvious choice." "This was an attack by an Islamic radical in uniform, inside the military," he said. "He should obviously be executed by a firing squad of soldiers."

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced Monday that President Donald Trump had approved Hegseth's recommendation for execution by Army firing squad.

The execution is scheduled for 1 p.m. Central time on Dec. 3 at Fort Hood — the same day of the week and the same time as when Hasan opened fire in 2009. If carried out, it would be the first US military execution since 1961 and the first death by firing squad since World War II.

A livestream would make it the first public execution in the United States in nearly a century. The last public execution in the country was a hanging carried out in Owensboro, Kentucky, in August 1936, witnessed by a crowd of about 20,000.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights told AFP that livestreaming an execution "amounts to a public execution and violates the absolute prohibition of torture."

Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert and professor at Fordham University School of Law, told the AP that a livestream could make the execution process "much more transparent."

Alonzo Lunsford, a former noncommissioned officer who survived the attack after being shot seven times, said he supports the firing squad sentence but expressed reservations about broadcasting the execution to the general public. He said survivors and victims' families should be able to witness it in person and announced plans to attend.

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, opened fire on unarmed soldiers undergoing medical screenings at Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Nov. 5, 2009, as they prepared for deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq. Twelve soldiers and one civilian were killed, and 32 others were wounded. Hasan was shot and paralyzed from the waist down during the response.

At trial, Hasan said he carried out the attack to protect Muslims abroad from US military forces. Investigators found that he had exchanged emails with a senior al-Qaeda figure in the months before the shooting. A military jury sentenced him to death in 2013, and his final appeal was rejected last April. He is one of four inmates on military death row.


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