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President Donald Trump has authorized the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former U.S. Army psychiatrist who carried out the deadliest mass shooting ever committed on a domestic American military installation, according to an announcement from the Pentagon.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the method of execution, and Trump gave his approval for Hasan to be put to death by firing squad, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed in a statement posted to the social platform X on Monday. The decision marks a significant moment in U.S. military justice, as it will be the first execution carried out by the American armed forces in more than six decades.
"The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution," Parnell wrote, adding that "judgment day for Hasan has finally come." The timing and location of the execution remain undetermined, leaving the Army to make the final logistical arrangements.
Hasan's case dates back to November 2009, when he opened fire at the Fort Hood military base in Texas — now known as Fort Cavazos — killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others. Among the casualties, 12 of the dead and 30 of the wounded were active-duty soldiers. The attack shocked the nation and raised profound questions about security, radicalization, and the vetting of military personnel.
A military jury convicted Hasan in 2013 and sentenced him to death. During his court-martial, Hasan chose to represent himself but mounted no real defense. He called no witnesses, offered no testimony on his own behalf, and made no attempt to deny the charges against him. His court-appointed defense attorneys grew so concerned about his behavior that they warned he appeared to be actively seeking his own execution — a troubling dynamic that complicated the trial from the outset.
The court heard evidence that Hasan had become radicalized in the years before the attack. He was reportedly opposed to the U.S. military's occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, conflicts he was preparing to deploy to himself. Investigators also learned that he had exchanged online communications with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born radical cleric and alleged Al-Qaeda figure who was later killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen. Prosecutors characterized the shooting as inspired by Al-Qaeda ideology, framing it as an act of terrorism rather than simply a workplace rampage.
Hasan was ultimately stopped by a civilian police officer who responded to the scene and shot him, leaving him partially paralyzed. That officer's actions are widely credited with preventing even greater loss of life. Hasan has remained in military custody since the attack, and his case has been entangled in years of legal appeals that slowed the path toward execution.
The decision to proceed with a firing squad is notably rare. While lethal injection remains the most common method of execution in the United States, firing squads have seen something of a revival in recent years amid difficulties obtaining the drugs used for lethal injections. In the military context, however, no service member has been executed since 1961, when Army private John Bennett was hanged for rape and attempted murder. The modern military justice system has handed down death sentences since then but has not carried one out, making Hasan's case historically significant.
Mass shootings at U.S. military facilities remain relatively uncommon despite the prevalence of gun violence in broader American society. The Fort Hood attack stands as the most deadly of its kind. In 2025, a soldier opened fire at a military base in Georgia, wounding five fellow troops before being subdued and taken into custody. In 2019, a U.S. sailor killed two people and wounded a third at a base in Hawaii, while a Saudi military student shot and killed three people at a Florida military facility the same year. Also in 2019, a Kuwaiti-born U.S. citizen attacked two military installations in Tennessee in 2015, killing four Marines and one sailor — an assault the FBI concluded was motivated by a foreign terrorist organization. Two years before Fort Hood, a gunman killed 12 people and wounded eight at the Washington Navy Yard before being shot dead by responding officers.
The approval of a firing squad execution underscores the Trump administration's broader push on military justice and capital punishment. Hegseth, who has overseen significant personnel changes at the Pentagon, has taken a hardline stance on military discipline and terrorism-related cases. The announcement follows other controversial statements and actions from the Defense Department in recent months.
Pentagon officials have not indicated whether Hasan's legal team plans further appeals that could delay the execution. The Army will now determine when and where the execution will take place, with observers noting that the method itself raises logistical and ethical questions that are likely to draw public scrutiny.
For the families of the victims, the decision may bring a measure of closure after more than a decade and a half of waiting. For opponents of the death penalty, it raises renewed concerns about the use of capital punishment within the military justice system and the prolonged nature of death row confinement. Either way, the case of Nidal Hasan is poised to become a landmark moment in the history of American military law — the first military execution in over 60 years, carried out by a method rarely used in the modern era.
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