Washington DC - President Donald Trump approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people at a military base in 2009, the Pentagon announced on Monday.
Hasan's execution for the attack at Fort Hood in Texas – which also wounded more than two dozen people – will be the first carried out by the US military since 1961.
"Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended – and President Donald J. Trump has approved – death by US Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009," Pentagon Spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a post on X.
"He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting 'Allahu Akbar' during the attack," Parnell said. "The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgment day for Hasan has finally come."
Hasan was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 for carrying out the Al-Qaeda inspired mass shooting at Fort Hood.
He chose to conduct his own defense during the trial but called no witnesses and gave no testimony. He made no attempt to deny the charges, triggering court-appointed defense attorneys to express concern that he was seeking execution.
Twelve of the dead and 30 of the wounded were soldiers. Hasan was shot by a civilian police officer who responded to the attack.
The court was told that his attack came in opposition to the US' occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It was revealed that he had spoken online with alleged Al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was subsequently killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.