By Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (Reuters) – The US will livestream the Army’s upcoming firing squad execution on December 3 of Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in a 2009 shooting spree, a Pentagon official said, in what would be an unprecedented move.
Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, is set to become the first person to be executed by firing squad by the US military since 1945.
The Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not offer more information and said details would follow.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier told the Human Events Daily podcast he planned to make Hasan’s execution public, according to video of his comments posted on social media on Thursday.
Hegseth said deciding to execute Hasan by firing squad at Fort Hood on a Thursday at 1 pm — the approximate time, day of the week and location of Hasan’s shooting — was a “no brainer.”
“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public. Because people need to understand that … there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said.
Asked if Hasan had made any final requests, Hegseth said: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3.”
A military jury sentenced Hasan to death in August 2013, after finding him guilty of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder for opening fire with a laser-sighted handgun in a medical facility at the sprawling central Texas military base.
The shooting came weeks before Hasan, now 56, was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan. He was left partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair from being shot by police during his arrest.
Under US military law, a US president must approve an execution by firing squad. President Donald Trump did so on Hegseth’s recommendation, the Pentagon disclosed on Monday.
“It hasn’t been since World War Two since we’ve done that. Well, kind of like the mentality we had in World War Two,” Hegseth said.
The group Death Penalty Action, which opposes capital punishment, said Hasan’s execution would be the first military execution since 1961.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the 1961 execution was carried out by hanging.
The last known executions by US military firing squads were in 1945, the center reported.
At least five states have firing squads on the books, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In 2025, South Carolina carried out the first such execution in the United States in 15 years.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
