Trump approves firing squad execution for Fort Hood shooter

President Donald Trump has approved the execution of former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan by firing squad, the Pentagon said, more than 16 years after Hasan killed 13 people in a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the method, and Trump approved it, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a social media post Monday. The Army secretary will decide when and where the execution takes place. No date has been announced.

“Judgement day for Hasan has finally come,” Parnell wrote.

Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 after being convicted of the November 2009 attack. More than 30 people were injured, according to CBS News. The Guardian reported that 12 of those killed and 30 of those wounded were soldiers.

The shooting took place on Nov. 5, 2009, at a medical facility on the Fort Hood base, which served as a staging point for troops deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan, The Guardian reported. A civilian police officer shot Hasan while responding to the attack, leaving him partially paralyzed, according to the newspaper.

Hasan acknowledged at trial that he carried out the shooting. CBS News reported that he said he had opened fire on fellow Army members to protect Islamic insurgents from U.S. military forces. The Guardian reported that the court heard Hasan opposed U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and had communicated online with Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida propagandist who was later killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen.

Hasan represented himself at his court-martial. He called no witnesses, gave no testimony and did not try to deny the charges, according to The Guardian. His court-appointed standby attorneys expressed concern that he was deliberately seeking a death sentence.

His case has gone through a lengthy appeals process. In 2024, Hasan asked the Supreme Court to review his conviction, arguing that the trial judge had violated his right to a public trial by clearing the courtroom before discussing some of his disputes with the standby attorneys. The court declined to hear the case in 2025, CBS News reported.

If carried out, Hasan’s execution would be the U.S. military’s first execution of an American service member since 1961, when a soldier was hanged after being convicted of raping and attempting to murder an 11-year-old girl, according to CBS News.

Execution by firing squad is also rare. South Carolina used the method three times in 2025, the first such executions since 2010, CBS News reported. The federal government typically uses lethal injection in civilian death penalty cases, but the Justice Department said earlier in 2026 that federal officials should consider other methods, including firing squads, electrocution and lethal gas.

CBS News said it had contacted Hasan’s attorney for comment.