President Trump has approved the execution by U.S. Army firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan, the radicalized Army psychiatrist who murdered 13 people and wounded 32 others in the 2009 Fort Hood massacre, setting the stage for the first U.S. military execution in 65 years and the first Army firing-squad execution since World War II.

Hasan, now 56, is scheduled to be executed on Dec. 3, 2026, at Fort Hood — the same Texas military installation where he carried out his deadly attack nearly 17 years ago — according to an email sent to families of the victims. The execution date was set after President Trump approved the death sentence and the method of execution following a recommendation from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced the decision, describing Hasan as a “convicted terrorist” and “the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009.”

“He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ during the attack,” Parnell said.

“The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution,” he continued. “Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”

Hasan was an Army major and psychiatrist when, on Nov. 5, 2009, he entered the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, where military personnel were preparing for deployments overseas. Armed with a semiautomatic handgun equipped with laser sights, Hasan opened fire on the unarmed people inside.

Witnesses said Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” immediately before beginning his rampage. Over the course of approximately 10 minutes, he fired 146 rounds, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others. Twelve of those killed were soldiers, and one of the victims was pregnant.

Among the severely wounded was Staff Sgt. Patrick Zeigler, a two-time combat veteran who was shot four times and spent nearly a year recovering in hospitals.

“He looked me straight in the eyes as he pointed the gun at me, and a split second later, I’m on the floor with a hole in my head,” Zeigler later recalled.

The massacre ended when civilian police officers confronted Hasan. He was shot multiple times and left paralyzed from the waist down.

Investigators subsequently uncovered extensive evidence of Hasan’s radicalization before the attack. He had repeatedly expressed opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and exchanged communications with Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Al Qaeda cleric and propagandist who was later killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen.

Hasan had himself been scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan later in November 2009. During subsequent court proceedings, he made clear that he viewed his attack through the prism of what he considered a war against Islam.

At one stage, Hasan sought permission to pursue a legal strategy arguing that he had acted in defense of others. When the military judge asked whom he claimed to have been defending, Hasan replied, “The leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban.”

Hasan ultimately represented himself at his 2013 court-martial. He admitted that he was the gunman, mounted virtually no defense, called no witnesses and offered little resistance to the prosecution’s case. He told the court that he had come to believe he was fighting on the wrong side of a war and had “switched sides.”

A military jury convicted Hasan in August 2013 on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. The panel unanimously sentenced him to death.

Hasan was then transferred to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he has remained on military death row as the case proceeded through the lengthy appeals process required in military capital cases.

The Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld his conviction and death sentence in 2020. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces subsequently affirmed the sentence, and in March 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review his case, removing another major legal obstacle to carrying out the execution.

Hegseth announced in September 2025 that he was moving to obtain presidential authorization for Hasan’s execution. Because military death sentences cannot be carried out without presidential approval, the case remained pending until Trump gave his authorization.

The decision to use a firing squad adds an extraordinary historical dimension to the case. The United States military has not executed anyone since April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth after being convicted of rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl.

The last known U.S. military execution by firing squad occurred during World War II. Pvt. Eddie Slovik was shot by an Army firing squad in France on Jan. 31, 1945, after being convicted of desertion. He was the only American soldier executed for desertion during World War II.

Under current Army regulations, a military execution requires approval from the president. Regulations were revised in 2019 to remove language specifying lethal injection as the required method, leaving greater flexibility over how a military death sentence can be carried out.

Even with Trump’s approval and a Dec. 3 execution date, Hasan could still seek to delay the sentence through litigation in the civilian federal courts, including a petition for habeas corpus. Military death sentences have historically generated years — and sometimes decades — of additional legal proceedings.

Hasan is one of only a handful of prisoners on U.S. military death row. Others include Hasan Akbar, convicted of murdering two fellow soldiers in Kuwait in 2003; Ronald Gray, convicted of multiple murders and rapes; and Timothy Hennis, convicted of murdering a woman and two of her children.

Hasan’s case, however, stands apart because of the scale of the Fort Hood massacre and his own statements concerning his motives. The attack was among the deadliest acts of violence ever carried out on a U.S. military installation.

If the execution proceeds as scheduled on Dec. 3, Hasan will be put to death at the military base where he carried out the massacre — ending a capital case that has stretched from the Fort Hood killings in 2009 through nearly 17 years of court proceedings and appeals.

{Matzav.com}