President Donald Trump has approved a recommendation by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to have convicted Fort Hood mass killer Nidal Hasan executed by a U.S. Army firing squad, the Pentagon said Monday evening.
“Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on X. He added that the secretary of the Army “will set the time and place of the execution,” writing: “Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.” Hegseth reposted the message with the word “Justice.”
First military execution since 1961
Hasan, 56, would be the first person executed after a U.S. armed forces court-martial since 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Federal law says a person convicted through court-martial and sentenced to death cannot be executed until approved by the president.
Hasan, a psychiatrist and Army major at the time, was convicted and sentenced to death after a 2013 court-martial for the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting spree at the Army base in Killeen, Texas, that killed 13 people and injured 32. During his court-martial, he told a judge he was motivated to defend the “leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban.” Hegseth said in September 2025 that he had asked Trump to approve the execution.
