A TERRORIST will be executed on livestream after killing 13 people at an army base in a shooting rampage.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be a “public event” as he wants to make sure people are able to watch it.
President Donald Trump officially approved the execution of Hasan on Monday, according to Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell.
The sentence will be carried out on December 3 at 1pm CST (7PM GMT) with more details to follow.
If the sentence goes ahead, he will be the first member of the US Armed Forces to be executed since John A. Bennett was hanged for rape and attempted murder in 1961.
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.”
Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who held the rank of major, was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at Fort Hood military base in 2009.
On November 5 he entered a medical building and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun on long lines of soldiers, who were waiting for routine immunizations and deployment clearances.
Before discharging his weapon he bowed his head several times and shouted Allahu Akbar, which is Arabic for “God is great!”
The former psychiatrist was later found with a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver, but it was not used during the shooting.
During the trial, prosecutors uncovered that Hasan spent weeks planning the deadly attack, often visiting an outdoor shooting range in Florence, Texas, where he allegedly became extremely skilled at hitting silhouette targets up to 100 yards away.
He allegedly entered the Guns Galore store in Killeen, Texas, on July 31, 2009 and asked for “the most technologically advanced weapon on the market and the one with the highest standard magazine capacity”.
Witnesses said Hasan initially “sprayed bullets at soldiers in a fanlike motion” before aiming at individual soldiers.
Sergeant Michael Davis, an eyewitness, said: “The rate of fire was pretty much constant shooting. When I initially heard it, it sounded like an M16.”
Investigators recovered 146 shell casings inside the building and 68 more outside, where Hasan shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.
Hasan said he carried out the twisted ten-minute shooting because he wanted to stop the soldiers from going to Afghanistan and “killing his fellow Muslims”.
A military judge did not allow him to use this defence during his trial, where the convicted terrorist made almost no effort to defend himself.
He told jurors that the evidence would show he was the shooter, describing himself as a “soldier who had switched sides”.
Duane Reasoner, a convert to Islam whom Hasan was mentoring in the religion, said: “[Hasan] said Muslims shouldn’t be in the US military, because obviously Muslims shouldn’t kill Muslims. He told me not to join the Army.”
Hasan was convicted on all charges during his trial, including 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder.
Several military law experts said that Hasan could choose to appeal his execution and file a habeas petition in civilian court, which would significantly delay the execution.
Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specialising in military law, said: “It frankly might outlast the current administration, and who knows if the next one will have the same penchant for executions.”
The U.S. military has not executed a service member by firing squad since World War II.
The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging.
It comes after the , 50, who survived two rounds of lethal injection on September 30.
The convicted killer was charged with the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer after luring her into a wooded area and brutally killing her.
She carried out the murder with her then-boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, in a satanist ritual, carving a pentagram onto Colleen’s chest.
Shipp narrowly avoided the death penalty as he was under 18.
Instead he was handed a life sentence for first-degree murder and given 25 years for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
