Trump approves firing squad execution of terrorist Nidal Hasan, gunman who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, shouted 'Allahu Akbar'

President Donald Trump approved the execution of terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army officer who killed 13 people and wounded 32 others in 2009 at Fort Hood in Texas.

The sentence, which will be carried out by an Army firing squad, has no set date at this time and, if carried out, would be the first military execution approved by a head of state since 1961.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, announced the decision on Monday 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, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009. 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. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come."

Fort Hood, in Killeen, is one of the Army's largest active-duty fortified bases. It was renamed in 2023 as Fort Cavazos, in honor of Hispanic General Richard Cavazos. On Nov. 5, 2009, Hasan prepared to carry out what would become known as the deadliest mass shooting on a U.S. military base in the country's history. The former officer brought a pistol and a .357-caliber revolver to a mosque, where he attended midday prayers, then drove to a soldier processing center, an administrative building where he knew the military personnel would be unarmed, and, shouting "Allahu Akbar," opened fire indiscriminately, leaving 13 dead and 32 wounded.

A shootout with law enforcement left him with multiple gunshot wounds, and he was transferred to intensive care.

"I shot to kill," he later told the Army's psychiatric evaluation board, whose report indicates that he denied having experienced depressive, manic, psychotic anxiety, or cognitive symptoms during the attack.

Four years later, a court-martial sentenced him to death. The sentence went through the automatic appeals process required by military law, first before the Army Criminal Court of Appeals and then before the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. In early 2025, a court upheld the sentence, and Hasan's defense team appealed to the Supreme Court, citing procedural objections regarding how the trial was conducted. The highest court declined to review the case.

The last execution of this kind was that of Private John Bennett, who was hanged on April 13, 1961, after attempting to murder an 11-year-old girl in Austria. George W. Bush also approved a military execution; however, a federal court halted it in 2008.