Trump approves firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan

U.S. President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former U.S. Army major who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said that the Army secretary will decide a time and place for the execution in a post on X.

“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,” Parnell wrote.

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“Judgement day for Hasan has finally come,” Parnell added.

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, walked into a medical building where soldiers were getting medical checkups and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun on Nov. 5, 2009. Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 injured.

During his trial, Hasan acknowledged to the jury that he pulled the trigger in a crowded waiting room where troops were getting final medical checkups before deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.

He was convicted of premeditated murder in 2013 and he was sentenced to death.

The U.S. military has not carried out the death penalty since 1961.

Army Pvt. John Bennett was the last man executed in the military system in 1961 for raping an 11-year-old girl, The Associated Press reports.

The 1961 execution was carried out by hanging, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

In March 2025, a death row prisoner in South Carolina was executed by firing squad, making him the first American inmate in 15 years to receive that method of capital punishment.

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U.S. prisoner executed by firing squad for 1st time in 15 years

In 2001, Brad Sigmon, 67, was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents, David and Gladys Larke, with a baseball bat before kidnapping their daughter at gunpoint. She escaped while he fired shots at her.

Sigmon chose to be put to death by firing squad in February 2025 (South Carolina state law requires inmates to decide how they will be executed).

Inmates can elect to die by lethal injec­tion, elec­tro­cu­tion, or fir­ing squad, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre.

Inmates sentenced to death by firing squad are strapped to a chair when they enter the execution chamber with a target stuck over their hearts and a bag placed over their head.

Three volunteers standing behind a curtain will then fire specially designed bullets into the inmates chest in unison.

Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah are the only other states that allow execution by firing squad, and only three exe­cu­tions have been car­ried out in in the U.S. using this method since 1977 — all of which were in Utah. The last firing squad exe­cu­tion was of Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010.

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Tennessee prison chief resigns after failed execution of Christa Pike

Trump approved Hasan’s firing squad execution days after a failed attempt to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection pushed Tennessee’s governor Bill Lee to halt further executions this year and order an independent review.

Pike has remained unconscious and on a ventilator since her failed execution.

Pike was scheduled for execution at 10 a.m. on Sept. 30 for a killing she committed at 18 and would have been the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in 200 years.

Tennessee prison officials gave Pike two doses of the lethal injection last week. Hospital staff, her lawyers said, were working to save Pike’s life and clear the two doses of pentobarbital, which Tennessee uses in its executions, from her system, the court filing shared by the New York Times states.

It is currently unclear what will happen in her death penalty case.

—With files from Global News’ Rachel Goodman and The Associated Press