President Trump has approved death by Army firing squad for Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, moving toward justice for the 13 Americans killed in his 2009 jihadist attack.
The decision clears a long-stalled path to carry out the death sentence against the former Army major and psychiatrist who opened fire on unarmed soldiers at a Texas base medical building. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the Army secretary will set the time and place.
The New York Post reported that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recommended the firing-squad method and that President Donald Trump approved it for the man described as a convicted terrorist.
Parnell put the stakes in plain terms on X.
"Judgement day for Hasan has finally come,"
he wrote, confirming the Army secretary’s role in scheduling the execution.
Hasan has sat on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, among four condemned men. The U.S. military has not carried out a death sentence since 1961. If the sentence is enforced, he would be the first service member executed by the armed forces in more than six decades.
In 2009, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan walked into a medical building at Fort Hood, Texas, where soldiers were getting checkups. He shouted “Allahu akbar”, Arabic for “God is great”, and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun.
Thirteen people died. More than 30 were wounded. Reporting on the case has detailed 12 U.S. service members and one civilian among the dead, with 32 people hurt.
Hasan later said the attack was meant to stop soldiers from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims. At trial he made almost no effort to defend himself. He told jurors the evidence would show he was the shooter and described himself as a soldier who had “switched sides.”
A military court sentenced him to death in 2013. He has remained on death row while the military justice system, which rarely hands down capital sentences, left the penalty unenforced.
Click2Houston reported that Trump’s approval of the firing-squad method triggers procedural steps toward carrying out the sentence. The Army secretary still must choose when and where it happens.
Hasan can still try to freeze those steps. An Army Lawyer magazine account noted he could seek a habeas corpus stay in the civilian federal courts, a move that might delay the case for years.
Parnell’s fuller statement tied the decision directly to Hegseth’s recommendation:
"Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended, and President Donald J. Trump has approved, death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009."
That language leaves little doubt about how the administration views the crime: an attack on unarmed American troops by a service member who chose the other side.
The last man executed in the military system was Pvt. John Bennett, hanged in 1961 for raping an 11-year-old girl. No one has been put to death under military authority since.
President George W. Bush approved the execution of Army Spc. Ronald Gray in 2008. A judge put it on hold. Gray remains at Leavenworth with Hasan and two others.
Trump’s order does not automatically end every legal roadblock. It does restart a process that had sat idle while families of the Fort Hood dead waited through multiple administrations.
Trump’s approval came days after a failed attempt in Tennessee to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection. That botched effort pushed Tennessee’s governor to halt further executions for the year and order an independent review.
Asked about problems with lethal injection, Trump called it “an interesting situation” and said of carrying out the method, “It shouldn’t be very difficult.” The choice of a firing squad for Hasan sidesteps the drug-protocol fights that have stalled many civilian executions.
During his prior term, Trump resumed the federal death penalty after an informal moratorium. The federal government executed 13 people between 2020 and early 2021.
The Fort Hood case sits in a different lane, the military system, but the pattern is the same: a president willing to use the lawful penalty the courts already imposed.
Approval is not the same as an execution date. The Army secretary must lock in logistics. Hasan retains the option of a civilian habeas petition that could stretch the timeline.
Prior planning referenced under names such as Operation Resolute Justice had contemplated moving death-row inmates toward final punishment. Whether those tracks revive in full remains a matter for the Pentagon and the courts.
Hasan’s own words at trial removed any mystery about motive. He cast the shooting as wartime solidarity with America’s enemies and admitted the act. The jury answered with a death sentence. For more than a decade that sentence collected dust.
Thirteen families buried loved ones after a rampage inside a U.S. Army base. More than 30 others carried wounds. The shooter lived on, drawing pay as a condemned prisoner while the institution he betrayed declined to finish the job the law allowed.
Trump’s decision does not revise 2009. It does force the system to confront a verdict it already reached.
Soldiers who report for medical screening should not have to wonder whether a colleague with a gun and a declared allegiance to the other side will ever face the full cost of murder. The firing squad order says the wait is supposed to end.
