Trump approves firing squad execution for Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan

President Donald Trump has approved a plan to execute convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan by a US Army firing squad, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced on 5 October 2026. Hasan killed 13 people and wounded 32 others in the 5 November 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. His execution would be the first by the US military since 1961.abcnews.com+1

The announcement matters because it sets in motion the first military execution in more than 60 years and the first by firing squad since the apparent last known such execution, carried out by musketry in November 1945, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a death sentence imposed by court-martial may not be carried out until approved by the president, which Trump has now done.straitstimes.com

What the Pentagon announced

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the execution method and Trump approved it, Parnell said in a statement. Parnell wrote that the Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution, adding, "Judgment day for Hasan has finally come." Hegseth shared the announcement with the single word "Justice." The announcement did not specify an execution date.

Hasan, a 56-year-old former US Army major and psychiatrist, was convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder by a general court-martial panel and sentenced to death in August 2013. He opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood. He was shot by police on arrest, left partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.upi.com

On 5 November 2009, Hasan killed 12 soldiers and one civilian employee at the Fort Hood military base, wounding 32 others. Parnell noted that Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" — God is greatest in Arabic — during the attack. Hasan never denied being the shooter and said he was defending the Taliban leadership in what he called the United States' war with Islam. The shooting came weeks before he was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan.

How the shooting unfolded

Hasan represented himself at trial and clashed with court-appointed standby attorneys who expressed concern that he was deliberately seeking a death sentence. He petitioned the Supreme Court in 2024, arguing the trial judge had violated his right to a public trial by excluding the public from courtroom discussions of his disputes with the standby attorneys. The Supreme Court declined to take up the case in 2025.

Death by firing squad was one of several forms of capital punishment the Trump administration recently added to permissible methods for the gravest federal crimes, alongside electrocution and gas asphyxiation. The number of federal execution options expanded in part because of increasing difficulties obtaining drugs for lethal injections. In Tennessee, a botched lethal-injection attempt on death-row inmate Christa Pike left her alive but unconscious and hospitalised on life support.

Why firing squad was chosen

Army policy outlines that executions must happen within 150 days of the president approving them, but no sooner than 60 days. Army regulation dictates that at least two media outlets should be selected to witness the execution. The date and location will be set by Secretary of the Army Adam Telle, Parnell said.

The plan, dubbed "Operation Resolute Justice" and issued internally in February, directed Army officials to coordinate with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer condemned prisoners from the US Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the federal execution facility in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Death Penalty Action, which opposes capital punishment, rebuked the decision. Co-founder Abraham Bonowitz said in an emailed statement: "There is nothing Donald Trump loves more than the power to kill." DPA said that as it has led protests opposing other federal executions, it will oppose military executions as well.

What happens next

The last US military execution occurred on 13 April 1961, when Pvt. John A. Bennett was hanged after being convicted of rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl in Austria. At least five states have firing squads on the books, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, and South Carolina carried out the first such US execution in 15 years in 2025.

Hasan is one of four death row inmates in the Army justice system, held at the US Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution, and Army policy requires it to take place within 150 days of Trump's approval, but no sooner than 60 days.