The Pentagon said Monday evening that President Donald Trump had approved Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's recommendation that former Army major Nidal Malik Hasan be executed by a U.S. Army firing squad for the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. [E17][E1]
A court-martial death sentence cannot be carried out until the U.S. president approves it, under federal law and military law. [E18][E15] Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesperson, wrote on X that the Army secretary will decide a time and place for the execution. [E3] "Judgement day for Hasan has finally come," Parnell wrote. [E4] Hegseth replied to Parnell's post, saying, "Justice." [E22] In September 2025, Hegseth told The Hill in a statement he was 100% committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan. [E20][E23]
Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, walked into a medical building where soldiers were getting medical checkups, shouted "Allahu akbar" — Arabic for "God is great!" — and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun. [E5] Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 injured. [E6]
A jury panel of 13 officers convicted him of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder and unanimously recommended a death sentence. [E14] He said it was an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims and made almost no effort to defend himself at trial. [E7] He told jurors that evidence would show he was the shooter and described himself as a soldier who had "switched sides." [E8] NBC News reported that prosecutors alleged he was motivated by unwillingness to be deployed to Afghanistan and by a sense of duty to jihad to kill as many American soldiers as possible, though a Joint Terrorism Task Force determined Hasan was not involved in terrorist activities or terrorist planning, and authorities said he acted alone. [E21]
The Supreme Court on March 31, 2025, denied a petition by Hasan to hear an appeal of his conviction, clearing the way for him to be executed. [E19] The approval triggers procedural steps toward carrying out the execution, but Hasan could put them on hold, potentially for years, with a habeas corpus appeal in the civilian federal court system, according to an article published in May in the magazine Army Lawyer. [E9] A military execution also requires appellate review and a final judgment on its legality before it can move forward. [E16]
Four men, including Hasan, are currently on the military's death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. [E10] The last man executed in the military system was Pvt. John Bennett, hanged in 1961 for raping an 11-year-old girl. [E2][E11] Hasan's case would be the first military execution by firing squad since the end of World War Two. [E12][E13]