U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth behind, speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One on a flight from Dover, Delaware, to Miami, Florida, U.S., March 7, 2026.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
The Pentagon on Monday evening said that President Donald Trump has approved a recommendation by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to have convicted Fort Hood mass killer Nidal Hasan executed by a U.S. Army firing squad.
Hasan, 56, would be the first person executed after a U.S. armed forces court-martial since 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for the rape and attempted murder of a girl in Austria.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
Hasan, a psychiatrist, was convicted and sentenced to death after a 2013 court-martial for the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting spree that killed 13 and injured 32 others at the Army base in Killeen, Texas, while he was an Army major.
During his court-martial, Hasan told a judge that he was motivated in the shooting to defend the “leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban.”
Hegseth in September 2025 said that he had asked Trump to approve Hasan’s execution.
Federal law says that a person convicted through court-martial and sentenced to death cannot be executed until approved by the president.
Nidal Hasan, charged with killing 13 people and wounding 31 in a November 2009 shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, is pictured in an undated Bell County Sheriff’s Office photograph.
Bell County Sheriff’s Office | Reuters
“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,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on X on Monday.
“He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ during the attack,” Parnell said.
The spokesman also said the secretary of the Army “will set the time and place of the execution.”
“Judgement day for Hasan has finally come,” Parnell wrote.
Hegseth retweeted Parnell’s post, writing “Justice.”
The Supreme Court on March 31, 2025, denied a petition by Hasan to hear an appeal of his conviction, clearing the way for him to be executed.
In September 2025, Hegseth told The Hill in a statement, “I am 100 percent committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan.”
“This savage terrorist deserves the harshest lawful punishment for his 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood,” Hegseth said at that time. “The victims and survivors deserve justice without delays.”
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Hasan is one of just four people currently on death row as the result of a U.S. military court-martial.