Who is Major Hasan? US Army using firing squad for the first time since WWII

Nidal Malik Hasan, the former US Army major convicted of the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, is scheduled to be executed by firing squad at the army base where he killed 13 people. If the sentence is carried out as scheduled on December 3, the United States military will do something it has not done in 65 years. Acting Army Secretary Adam R. Telle announced the date after President Donald Trump approved an order recommended by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The military has executed 135 service members since 1916, but it has not been used in a very long time. The last military execution of any kind took place on April 13, 1961, when Private John Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth for the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl. The last firing squad execution of a service member was that of Private Eddie Slovik, shot in France on 31 January 1945. Hasan would be the first soldier put to death by that method since World War II.

The comparison with Slovik is instructive. He was convicted of desertion and was the only one of roughly 50,000 deserters to be executed, a sentence General Dwight D. Eisenhower approved to deter others during the Battle of the Bulge. Hasan stands convicted of killing fellow soldiers on American soil. Fifteen military offences remain punishable by death, but the process is exacting. Cases pass through several tiers of appellate review, and no execution can proceed without explicit presidential authorisation. The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces declared the military death penalty unconstitutional in 1983, and President Ronald Reagan restored it by executive order in 1984. Hasan is now one of only four inmates on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The choice of venue adds to the weight. The commandant of the United States Disciplinary Barracks will oversee the proceedings at Fort Hood, the site of the massacre. Under Army protocols adopted in 2023, the method is selected by the Army Secretary, and a firing squad was chosen. At least two media representatives will witness the execution. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said that "judgement day for Hasan has finally come”.

The crime itself took place on November 5, 2009. Hasan, then an Army psychiatrist, entered a crowded medical processing centre where soldiers were preparing for overseas deployment and opened fire. The shooting lasted about ten minutes. Thirteen people died, among them 12 service members and one civilian, and 32 others were wounded. It remains the deadliest non-combat shooting on a United States military base.

At his 2013 court-martial Hasan dismissed his military defence team, represented himself and admitted the killings. He said he had acted out of a duty to wage jihad and to protect Taliban leaders in Afghanistan. Investigators later found that he had exchanged emails with the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The jury convicted him on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, and sentenced him to death. Paralysed from the waist down after being shot by responding officers, he has been held at Fort Leavenworth ever since.

The Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the sentence in 2020, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces affirmed it in 2023, and the Supreme Court denied a petition for review in March 2025. Army rules require an execution to take place between 60 and 150 days after presidential approval. The announced date falls 63 days after the signing, close to the earliest point permitted. Hasan can still file a federal habeas corpus petition in a civilian court, which could seek a stay.

The decision also fits a wider direction. On his first day back in office in January 2025, Trump signed an executive order reinstating the federal death penalty, describing it as an essential tool for punishing and deterring heinous acts of violence. Polling shows that 66 per cent of Americans support capital punishment for murder, and the proposed date falls in the midterm season.