Arkansas – “A just punishment for a terrorist who murdered American soldiers,” Sen. Tom Cotton said after President Donald Trump approved the execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan by U.S. Army firing squad.
Cotton, an Arkansas Republican and former Army officer, was responding to an announcement from Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had recommended the punishment and Trump had approved it.
Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others during the November 5, 2009, shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. The former Army psychiatrist was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 after being convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder.
Parnell announced the decision Monday, saying the Secretary of the Army will determine the time and location of the execution. Parnell also described Hasan as a convicted terrorist and said he opened fire on unarmed American soldiers during the attack.
The announcement marks a major development in a case that has remained on the military’s death-penalty docket for more than a decade.
Reuters reported that Hasan killed 12 unarmed active-duty soldiers and a retired serviceman and wounded 32 others during the attack. Hasan was shot by police during the incident and was left partially paralyzed.
According to Military Times, Hasan was convicted after a military trial in which he acknowledged carrying out the shooting. The outlet reported that Hasan said during his court-martial that he acted in support of the Taliban. He was subsequently transferred to Fort Leavenworth, where he has remained on death row.
The shooting occurred at a medical facility on the sprawling Texas Army base as Hasan was preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan. During the attack, he opened fire with a handgun, killing and wounding military personnel who were preparing for overseas deployments.
CBS News reported that Hasan had previously challenged aspects of his conviction and sentence. In 2024, he asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case, arguing that a judge had violated his right to a public trial. The Supreme Court declined to take up the case the following year.
If the execution is carried out, it would be the first U.S. military execution in more than six decades. CBS News reported that the last service member executed by the military was Army Pvt. John A. Bennett, who was hanged at Fort Leavenworth in 1961.
The use of a firing squad would also be particularly unusual. Military Times reported that the last known U.S. Army execution by firing squad occurred in 1945, when Pvt. Eddie D. Slovik was executed by firing squad in France during World War II.
Reuters reported that firing squads were among several execution methods recently added to the federal government’s permissible methods, alongside electrocution and gas asphyxiation. The changes came amid ongoing difficulties obtaining lethal-injection drugs and concerns surrounding some lethal-injection procedures.
The decision also comes shortly after a failed lethal-injection attempt in Tennessee involving death-row inmate Christa Pike. Reuters reported that the attempted execution left Pike alive and hospitalized, highlighting ongoing controversy surrounding execution procedures.
Hasan’s case is governed by the military justice system rather than the ordinary federal civilian death-penalty system. NBC Washington reported that military death sentences require personal approval from the president before they can be carried out.
The Secretary of the Army has not yet announced when or where Hasan’s execution will take place.
Cotton’s brief response came as officials confirmed that the death sentence imposed following one of the deadliest attacks on a U.S. military installation is moving forward after Trump’s approval.