WASHINGTON — The Army has set an execution date for Nidal Hasan, the former Army major and psychiatrist convicted in the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting: Dec. 3 at 1 p.m. Central time.
Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle announced the date Tuesday in a social media post, saying the execution will take place at Fort Hood, the Texas base where Hasan killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others in November 2009. The timing matches the execution window under Army policy, which requires the execution to occur within 150 days of presidential approval but no sooner than 60 days.
The announcement came a day after the Pentagon said President Donald Trump had approved a firing-squad execution for Hasan, acting on a recommendation from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Monday that Hegseth had recommended death by U.S. Army firing squad and that Trump signed off on it. It would be the first military execution by firing squad since 1945 and the first U.S. military execution of any kind since 1961.
Hasan was convicted in August 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder for the Nov. 5, 2009, attack on soldiers preparing to deploy. He opened fire inside a crowded soldier processing center, telling jurors during his trial that he acted to stop the deployment of soldiers he believed were going to fight Muslims. A 13-officer jury panel unanimously recommended death. He has been held on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and is one of four inmates there.
Trump’s approval triggers procedural steps toward the execution, but Hasan could still seek to delay it through a habeas corpus appeal in the civilian federal court system, according to a May analysis in the magazine Army Lawyer.
