Firing squad execution of US military base shooter to be public and livestreamed, says Pentagon
United States Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says the firing squad execution of convicted military base shooter Nidal Hasan will be “public”, according to a video shared by the Pentagon.
“He’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” Hegseth told right-wing influencer Jack Posobiec in a clip posted on X by various official Pentagon accounts.
“People need to understand that ... there’s serious consequence for these types of things,” Hegseth said, speaking aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.
Asked to clarify what Hegseth meant by the execution being “public”, the Pentagon referred AFP to the US Army, which in turn said to contact the Pentagon.
According to rights group Amnesty International, at least 17 public executions are known to have been carried out last year. Six were in Afghanistan and 11 in Iran.
The Pentagon announced this week that US President Donald Trump had approved Hasan’s execution for the 2009 fatal shooting of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas.
Twelve of the dead and 30 of the wounded were soldiers. Hasan was shot and partially paralysed by a civilian police officer who responded to the attack.
He was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 for the al-Qaeda-inspired attack.
The court that convicted Hasan was told that he was opposed to the US military’s occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and that he had spoken online with an alleged al-Qaeda figure, radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen subsequently killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.
Hasan’s execution will be the first by the US military since 1961.
- AFP