Fort Hood Killer to Face a Firing Squad on Livestream: Hegseth Says the Execution Will Be Public

A firing squad of soldiers, and the whole country able to watch. That is the plan for Nidal Hasan, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an interview with Real America's Voice on Wednesday.

“We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public. People need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things.”

— Pete Hegseth, US Secretary of Defense, to Real America's Voice (via BBC)

A Defense Department official confirmed to the BBC that the execution will be livestreamed. It is set for Fort Hood, Texas, on 3 December. Asked whether Hasan had made any final requests, Hegseth answered: "Don't care. We'll see him on December 3rd."

The deadliest attack on a US base

On 5 November 2009, Hasan, then an Army major and psychiatrist, opened fire in a crowded medical building where soldiers were waiting for check-ups before deployment. Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 wounded. At his court-martial in 2013 he said he believed he was protecting Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan. He was sentenced to death.

It would be the first US military execution since 1961 and the first by military firing squad since 1945.

Critics and caveats

Legal experts call a livestreamed execution unprecedented in the modern era. One went further:

“To livestream an execution is just so out of the Middle Ages.”

— Eugene R. Fidell, Yale Law School, to the BBC

Hasan's appeals are also not exhausted, and a federal review could still delay the date. @TRobinsonNewEra, whose post is the source of this Signal, shared the Pentagon's announcement.