Trump approves the execution of Nidal Hasan: ‘He killed 13 soldiers at Fort Hood’
The former army psychiatrist had been convicted in 2009 for opening fire on his fellow soldiers
Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, who was sentenced to death in 2009 for the attack on the Fort Hood military base in which he killed 13 people and injured 32. Hasan was convicted in recent years by a military jury following a court-martial in which the defendant had waived his right to a defence.
It’s all happening with remarkable timing, just a few days after failed execution of Christa Pike, due to the lethal injection being ineffective, with the death penalty inevitably becoming propaganda tool and a topic of debate in the run-up to the elections of Midterm elections in the United States.
The Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth ‘has recommended’, and the US President ‘has approved, the death penalty by firing squad carried out by a US Army firing squad for the convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan’, who had shouted ‘Allah Akbar’ during the attack. The Defence Secretary will decide the time and place of the execution. ‘The day of reckoning for Hasan has finally arrived,’ said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell.
Hasan, a former army psychiatrist, stood trial for the massacre of 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, which also took place in 2009. All but one of the victims were soldiers, including a pregnant soldier who had thrown herself to the ground, begging for her unborn child to be spared. The shooting only ended when Hasan was shot in the back by a soldier who had returned fire.
The former major was left paralysed from the waist down. The former psychiatrist, a Muslim of Palestinian origin, had said he had acted to protect Islamic rebels abroad from US aggression. He had admitted to opening fire in a crowded waiting room where dozens of soldiers were awaiting their final medical check-up before deployment to the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.
