President Donald Trump has authorized the use of a firing squad to execute Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the perpetrator of the 2009 Fort Hood massacre, ending a long period of military judicial dormancy.
The silence surrounding the military’s death row is coming to an end. President Donald Trump has officially approved the execution of Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan by firing squad, greenlighting the first military execution in the United States since 1961.
The decision marks a stark shift for a military justice system that has effectively abandoned capital punishment for more than six decades. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed the development. noting that the Army secretary is now tasked with determining the specific time and place for the execution. “Judgement day for Hasan has finally come,” Parnell wrote in a public post.
For those who remember the events of 2009, the name Nidal Malik Hasan remains synonymous with tragedy. An Army psychiatrist, Hasan entered a Fort Hood medical building as soldiers waited for routine checkups. Shouting “Allahu akbar,” he opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun, killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others. During his trial. Hasan offered little defense. telling jurors he was a soldier who had “switched sides” to prevent the deployment of troops to Afghanistan. where he believed they would kill his fellow Muslims.
The approval initiates a complex procedural path, yet finality remains far from guaranteed. While the authorization is firm. legal experts point to the likelihood of a habeas corpus appeal within the civilian federal court system. Such a move could tie the execution up in litigation for years, similar to the case of Army Spc. Ronald Gray, who remains at Fort Leavenworth despite receiving execution approval from President George W. Bush in 2008.
Hasan is one of four men currently held on the military’s death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The military’s last execution occurred in 1961, when Pvt. John Bennett was hanged for the rape of an 11-year-old girl.
The move aligns with a broader trend of aggressive capital punishment under this administration. After an informal moratorium held by previous administrations. the federal government carried out 13 executions between 2020 and early 2021. a rate that made Trump the most prolific execution president in over 130 years. This latest directive comes just days after a failed execution attempt in Tennessee led that state’s governor to pause capital punishment and demand an independent review.
When asked if such complications might prompt a rethink of the process, Trump dismissed the difficulty of the logistics. “It shouldn’t be very difficult,” he said, labeling the Tennessee situation “an interesting situation.”
Nidal Malik Hasan Fort Hood shooting Donald Trump military execution firing squad death penalty Pentagon