President Donald Trump has approved execution by firing squad for Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army major convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others in the 2009 Fort Hood terrorist attack, the Pentagon announced Sunday evening.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recommended the execution and that Trump signed off on it. “Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009,” Parnell said. “He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ during the attack. The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”
Hegseth’s reaction was brief: “JUSTICE.”
Under Article 71 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a military death sentence cannot be carried out without presidential approval. That approval had been the last obstacle facing the Army, which has spent months preparing for the possibility of executing Hasan and three other men held on military death row — Ronald Gray, Hasan Akbar and Timothy Hennis — under an internal plan known as “Operation Resolute Justice.”
Those preparations included procedures for transferring condemned prisoners from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, coordination with federal prison officials, and arrangements for witnesses. As of June, an Army spokeswoman had said no presidential order authorizing an execution had yet been received.
If carried out, the execution would be the first by the U.S. military since 1961, when Army Pvt. John A. Bennett was hanged after being convicted of rape and attempted murder.
The Fort Hood Attack
Hasan carried out the massacre on Nov. 5, 2009, at what was then Fort Hood, Texas, now known as Fort Cavazos. He opened fire at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center, killing 13 people and wounding dozens of others. Witnesses said he shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he began firing.
A military jury convicted Hasan in 2013 on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. He was sentenced to death and has since been held at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. During his court-martial, Hasan represented himself and told the panel in his opening statement that “the evidence will clearly show that I am the shooter.”
Hegseth had signaled his support for carrying out the sentence well before Sunday’s announcement. In September 2025, he said he was “100 percent committed” to seeing the execution carried out, while the Pentagon sought the presidential sign-off required by law.
With that approval now given, the Secretary of the Army is responsible for setting the time and place of the execution. Military death-penalty cases have historically involved lengthy appellate and collateral proceedings, meaning further litigation is possible before any execution takes place.
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