The Man Trump Ordered to Face a U.S. Firing Squad After 81 Years
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump has approved the execution of former Army major by firing squad, setting up what would be the American military’s first execution by that method since the final year of World War II.
Nidal Hasan, a former US Army psychiatrist, was sentenced to death for the November 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, now known as Fort Cavazos, in which 13 people were killed and 32 wounded. A military jury convicted him in 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended that Hasan be executed by firing squad and Trump approved the recommendation. The Secretary of the Army will determine the time and location. The decision is historically significant because the US military has not executed anyone by any method since 1961, when Army Private John Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The last Army soldier executed by firing squad was Private Eddie Slovik, who was shot in France in January 1945 after being convicted of desertion during World War II. He was the only American soldier executed for desertion during that war.
Hasan opened fire at a Fort Hood processing centre on 5 November 2009, targeting soldiers preparing for deployment. He was shot by police during the attack, leaving him partially paralysed and using a wheelchair. At his trial, Hasan acknowledged carrying out the shooting and said his actions were connected to his opposition to US military operations in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries.
Trump’s approval does not mean the execution will happen immediately. Military death sentences require presidential approval, but Hasan can still pursue challenges in the civilian federal courts that could delay the execution. The US Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal in 2025.
The firing-squad order also comes as the Trump administration expands the methods available for carrying out federal executions. In April, the Justice Department announced that firing squads, electrocution and gas asphyxiation would be among the permitted methods alongside lethal injection.
Hasan’s case is governed by the military justice system rather than the ordinary federal civilian death penalty process, making Trump’s direct approval a necessary part of carrying out the court-martial sentence.
The decision has renewed debate over capital punishment in the United States. Death Penalty Action, which opposes executions, criticised Trump’s decision, while the Pentagon has presented the order as the enforcement of the sentence imposed after Hasan’s conviction.
If the remaining legal hurdles are cleared and the execution proceeds, Hasan would become the first US service member executed in 65 years and the first put before a military firing squad since 1945.
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