President Donald Trump has approved death by U.S. Army firing squad for Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army officer sentenced to death for the 2009 Fort Hood attack that killed 13 people and wounded 32 others. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced the decision after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recommended the sentence be carried out.
Fox News reported that the approval clears the path for the Army secretary to set an execution time and place. If carried out, it would mark the first time a president has successfully signed off on a U.S. military execution since 1961.
The case sits at the sharp edge of military justice. A court-martial death sentence is the gravest penalty available under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and Hasan’s case has spent years moving through automatic appeals before reaching this presidential decision.
Parnell stated the recommendation and approval in plain terms on X, identifying Hasan as the man who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009.
"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 added the casualty count and the words Hasan shouted during the attack.
"He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting 'Allahu Akbar' during the attack."
He closed with a blunt line on finality: "Judgment day for Hasan has finally come." Just The News also carried the Parnell announcement and noted that Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was convicted in 2013 for the Fort Hood shooting.
Parnell said the Army secretary will set the execution’s time and place. No public schedule has been released.
On Nov. 5, 2009, Hasan opened fire at a soldier readiness processing facility, also described as an administrative building, at Fort Hood. Thirteen people were killed. Thirty-two others were wounded.
Reporting on the case describes Hasan taking a pistol and a 0.357 revolver to a mosque for noon prayers, then driving to the facility. Witness statements tied to the sanity board materials said that after shouting “Allahu Akbar,” he unloaded into “the greatest density of soldiers.”
Law enforcement engaged him in a firefight. Hasan sustained multiple gunshot wounds, was apprehended, and was rushed into intensive care.
Hasan was court-martialed roughly four years after the attack and sentenced to death. An Army press release from the Fort Hood Public Affairs Office described the sentencing phase in stark procedural language.
"In Hasan's sentencing, lead prosecutor Col. Michael Mulligan rested the government's case on the morning of Aug. 27, after two days of emotional testimony from surviving widows and parents of some of those murdered, Nov. 5, 2009,"
Among the witnesses was Joleen Cahill. She said her husband, retired Chief Warrant Officer Michael Cahill, had given his life trying to stop Hasan and spoke of the devastation left for their family.
Hasan’s own statement cut through any claim of confusion about intent. In material from a sanity board report, he said, "I shot to kill." That same report, as described in the available record, said he denied depressive, manic, psychotic, anxiety, or cognitive symptoms during the attack.
A death sentence in the military system does not end at the courtroom door. The Army explained the required path after Hasan was sentenced.
"Given that the death sentence was imposed, the military justice system requires this case to be automatically appealed to the U.S. Army Criminal Court of Appeals and then to the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces,"
Those automatic reviews are built into the process because the penalty is final. A court upheld the death sentence in early 2025. Representation for Hasan then sought Supreme Court review, citing procedural objections to how the trial was run. The Supreme Court denied review.
With appellate review closed, the case returned to the executive decision that only a president can make on a military death sentence of this kind.
U.S. military executions have been extraordinarily rare in the modern era. The last one carried out was the hanging of Pvt. John Bennett on April 13, 1961, after a case tied to an attempted killing of an 11-year-old girl in Austria.
History also shows how fragile these approvals can be. President George W. Bush approved a military execution, but a federal court stopped it in 2008. Trump’s approval now puts Hasan on a live path toward an Army firing squad, contingent on the Army secretary setting time and place and on the sentence being carried out.
The Department of War advanced the request. Hegseth recommended the method. Trump approved it. That chain of action is what Parnell announced.
Authorities have not publicly released a date or location for the execution. Investigators and Army officials have not said when the Army secretary will issue that schedule.
No public results have been released that list every victim by name in the materials used for this report. The specific text of any formal presidential order beyond the Parnell announcement has not been published in the account provided. The precise procedural objections raised at the Supreme Court were summarized only at a high level as challenges to how the trial was run.
What is established is the legal posture now in force: conviction, death sentence, appeals exhausted through the military appellate courts, Supreme Court review denied, and presidential approval of death by U.S. Army firing squad.
This case tests whether a completed court-martial death sentence, sustained after years of required review, still means what the law says it means. Thirteen soldiers and others at Fort Hood were killed. Thirty-two were wounded. Families gave sentencing testimony about lives ended in an attack on unarmed troops at a readiness facility.
Hasan’s recorded words left little room for rewritten intent. He said he shot to kill. The military jury answered with the maximum sentence available. Courts later left that sentence standing.
Presidential approval does not invent the verdict. It decides whether the sentence imposed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice will be executed after the appeals the system itself demanded.
When soldiers are murdered on a U.S. post and a court-martial answers with death, the republic either enforces the judgment or teaches that even finished capital cases can drift without end.
