Nidal Hasan will face a U.S. Army firing squad, the first time the American military has carried out an execution this way since World War II.
Quick Take
- President Trump approved death by firing squad for Hasan after a recommendation from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
- Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others at Fort Hood in 2009.
- He has sat on death row since his 2013 court-martial sentence, held at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
- This marks the first U.S. military execution since 1961, when a soldier was hanged for rape and murder.
Trump Approves Historic Execution Method
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced the decision, saying Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recommended it and President Trump approved it. Parnell said death would come “by U.S. Army firing squad” for Hasan, calling him a convicted terrorist. The Secretary of the Army now has the job of setting the exact time and place for the execution, a detail still undecided as of this announcement.
This is not a new case suddenly brought to light. Hasan has sat on military death row for over a decade. What changed is the method and the green light from the top of the chain of command, closing a legal chapter that stretched across three presidencies and nearly seventeen years since the attack itself.
The 2009 Attack That Started It All
Hasan, an Army major and psychiatrist, opened fire at the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Processing Center in Texas on November 5, 2009. He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others before being shot by police and left paralyzed. A military court-martial jury found him guilty on all 42 counts in August 2013, then took less than two hours to set his punishment at death.
The Army confirmed at the time that Hasan was sentenced to death following that swift panel deliberation at Fort Hood. His case then entered the mandatory appellate review that every military death sentence must pass through before an execution can even be considered, a process that dragged on for over a decade.
A Punishment the Military rarely Uses
The last time the U.S. military executed one of its own was in 1961, when Army Private John Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth for rape and attempted murder. Hasan’s execution, if it proceeds, breaks that 60-plus year silence entirely. Some reporting frames it even further back, noting no firing squad execution in the military has happened since World War II.
That rarity is not an accident of bureaucracy. A court-martial death sentence cannot move forward without approval from the commander in chief himself. That structure means every military execution is, by design, a presidential decision, not just a courtroom outcome. Hasan’s case needed to clear that bar after exhausting appeals, and it has.
Where the Case Stands Now
Hasan has remained in custody at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, since his conviction. He lost his final appeal earlier this year, clearing the last legal obstacle standing between his sentence and its execution. With presidential approval now secured, the only remaining steps are purely logistical, handled by Army leadership rather than the courts.
News of the decision spread quickly across television and social media, with many pointing back to how the 2009 shooting was initially described by officials at the time as workplace violence rather than terrorism, a characterization that angered victims’ families for years. The firing squad approval closes that chapter with a punishment matching the gravity many felt the crime always deserved.
TRUMP APPROVES USE OF FIRING SQUAD: President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan for the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. https://t.co/J0266om5c9
— WPLG Local 10 News (@WPLGLocal10) October 6, 2026
No execution date has been set yet, and that detail falls to the Army Secretary. What is confirmed is the method, the approval chain, and the conviction underneath it all. For families of the 13 killed and 32 wounded that day, a case that began in a Texas processing center seventeen years ago now has a clear and historic endpoint in sight.
