Pentagon to livestream firing-squad execution of US Army psychiatrist who killed 13: Inside the scrutinized plan

Pentagon to livestream firing-squad execution of US Army psychiatrist who killed 13: Inside the scrutinized plan

Nidal Hasan, who was wounded and left paralyzed from the waist down during his arrest, was sentenced to death more than a decade ago
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of former Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at the Fort Hood base in 2009, is set to become an unprecedented event in the nation’s history.
Approved by US President Donald Trump, the plan has drawn bipartisan criticism and condemnation from human rights advocates and religious leaders, who say it risks turning an execution into a public spectacle.
What happened at Fort HoodThe fatal shooting occurred on November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center in Texas, where troops prepared for overseas deployment. US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old military psychiatrist, opened fire with two semiautomatic pistols, killing 12 service members and one civilian Defense Department employee, and wounding 32 more.
Military police injured Hasan by returned fire, leaving the shooter paralyzed from the waist down before taking him into custody. A US Senate report designated the spree killing as the deadliest terrorist attack on US soil since September 11, 2001.
The man behind the Fort Hood shootingBorn in the US in 1970 to Palestinian immigrant parents, Hasan trained as a doctor before becoming an Army psychiatrist. Before the shooting, he served at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Maryland, where he worked with service members, including those returning from combat zones. By 2009, he had attained the rank of major and was preparing for a transfer to Afghanistan.
RT composite. ©  US Government Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences via Getty Images;  Bell County Sheriff's Office via Getty Images
Was the shooting part of a wider plot?Hasan said he had acted in the name of jihad, and witnesses reported that he shouted Allahu akbar (God is greatest) during the shooting. Authorities examined the attack in the context of Islamic extremism, while the FBI said in the days immediately after the shooting that it had found no evidence of accomplices or a wider terrorist plot. Investigators continued examining the circumstances that led Hasan to carry out the attack.
In the years before the attack, Hasan exchanged emails with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric linked to al-Qaeda. The FBI reviewed some of their correspondence but initially concluded that the available information did not indicate Hasan was involved in terrorist activity. A subsequent review found serious failures in how the FBI and the US Department of Defense had assessed and shared information about him, concluding that the agencies had enough information to identify signs of his radicalization but had failed to act on it.
From conviction to execution dateIn August 2013, a military court found Hasan guilty of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. Later that month, a panel of 13 senior military officers unanimously sentenced him to death, ordering his dismissal from the Army and forfeiture of all pay and allowances. Hasan has since been held on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Hasan would be executed by a firing squad of soldiers at Fort Hood on December, 3, at 1 PM – the same time the 2009 shooting began. Hegseth added that the execution would be livestreamed because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things.
This undated photo provided by the Bell County Sheriff's Department shows former Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan. ©  Bell County Sheriff's Department via AP
Livestream plan draws bipartisan backlashThe plan has drawn criticism from lawmakers across party lines, religious leaders and the United Nations’ human rights office, which warned on Friday that broadcasting the execution woul