Trump administration, critical of Iran’s public executions, to livestream Nidal Hasan’s death by firing squad

The Trump administration, which is critical of Iran over public executions, plans to livestream the US military’s upcoming firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, back in 2009. The Pentagon confirmed Thursday, October 8, that Hasan will be executed and livestreamed on December 3 at Fort Hood, multiple US media outlets, including CBS News, reported, citing a Pentagon official. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth affirmed the news about Hasas’s livestream execution on X.


Hasan, a ex-Army psychiatrist sentenced to death in 2013 by a military jury. He will become the first person executed by the military in more than 65 years.


Also Read: Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan to be executed publicly: Last such execution in US took place over 90 years ago and 20,000 people gathered to witness it

Speaking to conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice on Thursday, Hegseth defended the decision to hold the execution at Fort Hood on a Thursday at 1 pm, approximately matching the time and the 2009 shooting which was also occurred in a Thursday.

“We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public. Because people need to understand that ... there's serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said.

Asked whether Hasan had made any final requests, Hegseth replied: “Don't care. We'll see him on December 3.”

Hegseth’s announcement has also come at a time when some people have become furious about the nature of execution in the US since the state of Tennessee recently failed to execute Christa Pike, a convicted murderer, by lethal injection.

Trump has been critical of Iran over public hangings

The US President Donald Trump has previously cited the possibility of Iranian authorities executing protesters as a reason for considering military action against the country.

“We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping,” Trump told reporters on Jan. 14. “It’s stopping, and there’s no plan for executions.”

When the anti-government protests erupted in Iran, he wrote on Truth Social a day earlier, that Iranian authorities would “pay a big price” for the killings and encouraged protesters to “keep protesting”.

“I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!!," he added, using the acronym for a US-style Iranian slogan, “Make Iran Great Again”.

During his State of the Union address on February 24, days before waging war on Iran, Trump was also being vocal about the public hangings of people and took credit for stopping the killings: “We stopped them from hanging a lot of them with the threat of serious violence.”

What happened at Fort Hood in 2009?

Hasan opened fire at a medical facility at the Texas military base on November 5, 2009, which killed 13 people and injured 32. Twelve of those killed and 30 of the wounded were soldiers. A civilian police officer shot Hasan during the attack, leaving him partially paralyzed.