US military to livestream firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan

The Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan on 3 December will be livestreamed. It would be the first US military execution in more than 60 years.

3 min readOct 9, 2026 06:42 AM IST First published on: Oct 9, 2026 at 06:42 AM IST

This undated photo provided by the Bell County Sheriff's Department shows former Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan. (Bell County Sheriff's Department via AP, File)

The US military will livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, a Pentagon official has said. Hasan is due to face a firing squad at the base on 3 December.

According to news agency Reuters, no US military firing squad execution has taken place since 1945, and it would be the first US military execution in more than 60 years. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who pushed for the firing squad, earlier said that the execution would be public. He did not say how, until the Pentagon confirmed it would be shown live.

What Hegseth and the Pentagon said

Hegseth told the TV channel Real America’s Voice that the execution would be open to the public, AP reports. The Guardian says he described the case as an attack by a radical Islamist in uniform, and that he wants people to understand there are serious consequences. Reuters says he chose a Thursday at 1 pm at Fort Hood because it is close to the time, day and place of the 2009 shooting.

Later, a Pentagon official told Reuters: “The Secretary is correct. It will be livestreamed.” The official spoke without giving a name, and said more details would follow. Asked whether Hasan had made any final requests, Hegseth told The Guardian: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3.” The White House did not say whether Trump backs the livestream and sent questions to the Pentagon, Reuters says.

Who Nidal Hasan is and what he did

Hasan was an Army psychiatrist with the rank of major. On 5 November 2009 he opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun in a medical building at Fort Hood, where soldiers were waiting for vaccinations and medical checks before deployment. He killed 13 people and wounded 32, according to Associated Press (AP). A military jury sentenced him to death in August 2013 after finding him guilty of 45 counts of murder and attempted murder, Reuters says. He is 56 and has used a wheelchair since police shot him during his arrest.

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The Guardian says investigators found Hasan had exchanged 18 emails with the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was later killed in a US drone strike. A review led by former FBI director William Webster found the FBI should have looked into those messages more closely. At his trial, Hasan said he acted to stop US soldiers going to Afghanistan to kill fellow Muslims, but the judge did not let him use that as a defence, AP says.

Hegseth said Barack Obama had called the attack “workplace violence”. The Guardian says there is no record of Obama using that phrase. It says the Pentagon first treated the case as workplace violence, which affected whether victims could receive Purple Hearts and other combat-related benefits.

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