The Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the execution would be “public.” Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice News on Wednesday, said the execution of Hasan will take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3. Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009. Hegseth spoke to the outlet aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier while visiting the long-deployed crew, who supported the Iran war, before their arrival at their home port in San Diego.
When asked if Hasan had made any final requests or reached out to the Trump administration, Hegseth simply replied: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3rd.” Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution will be livestreamed and that more details would follow. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell had said Monday that President Donald Trump had approved the execution of Hasan.
Trump has previously been critical of public executions in Iran, at times using the possibility of protesters being killed by the Iranian government as a possible rationale for military action. Those warnings preceded his ultimate choice to attack Iran at the end of February over its ballistic missiles and the risk of it developing nuclear weapons. And they decided not to do it.
They didn’t hang the people.” Slightly more than a month later in his State of the Union address, Trump said, “We stopped them from hanging a lot of them with the threat of serious violence.” The White House on Thursday immediately referred questions about the plans for the livestreamed execution to the Pentagon. However, experts on military law said Hasan could choose to resist execution and file a habeas petition in civilian court, which could significantly delay the execution. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specialising in military law.
Read moreTrump says 'major progress' made towards US military base in Poland Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who held the rank of major, walked into a medical building where soldiers were were waiting in long lines to receive immunizations and medical clearance for deployment. He shouted “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun. During the trial it was revealed that Hasan spent weeks planning the deadly attack, and his preparation included videotaping a sales clerk showing him how to change the magazine on the pistol that he purchased.
He would later go to a gun range outside Austin and ask for advice on how to reload with speed and precision from an instructor. Soldiers later testified that Hasan’s rapid reloading made it all but impossible to stop the shooting. Investigators recovered 146 shell casings inside the building and dozens more outside, where Hasan shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.
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