President Donald Trump has approved the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, and the method will be a firing squad. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced the decision on October 5. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the firing squad, and Parnell said: "The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come."
If it is carried out, it will be the U.S. military's first execution since 1961 and the Army's first by firing squad since World War II. Approval does not mean the execution is close. The Associated Press reports that Hasan could still delay it for years by challenging it in federal court, and Stars and Stripes reports that it is unclear whether he will try. Profoundd found no public statement from Hasan or from a lawyer representing him as of October 6.
The attack and the case
On November 5, 2009, Hasan, then an Army major, opened fire with a handgun inside a soldier readiness center at Fort Hood where troops were being processed for deployment. Twelve active-duty soldiers and one retired soldier working as a civilian were killed, and more than 30 people were wounded. Witnesses said he shouted "Allahu akbar." He was shot during the attack and left partly paralyzed.
A military jury convicted him in August 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, and sentenced him to death. He made almost no defense at trial, telling jurors he had acted to stop soldiers from going to Afghanistan and killing fellow Muslims. His appeals took more than a decade. The Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the sentence in 2020, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his case in 2025.
Why the president had to sign off, and why it may still take years
Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a death sentence from a court-martial cannot be carried out until the president approves it. Four men are on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Hasan is now the second of them with that approval. The first, Ronald Gray, shows how long the remaining steps can take: President George W. Bush approved Gray's execution in July 2008, a federal judge halted it before the scheduled date, and Gray is still on death row.
The Army has been preparing for this moment. ABC News reported in June that an Army plan issued in February, called Operation Resolute Justice, would move condemned prisoners from Fort Leavenworth to the federal execution facility in Terre Haute, Indiana. Hegseth said at the time: "I am 100% committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan. The victims and survivors deserve justice without delays." The Trump administration added the firing squad to the methods approved for federal executions in April. The military's last execution, in 1961, was the hanging of Army Pvt. John Bennett.
Sources: the Associated Press and Stars and Stripes, October 5 and 6, 2026; Al Jazeera, October 6, 2026; ABC News, June 6, 2026; the Killeen Daily Herald on the Supreme Court's 2025 denial.
