The Army announced this week that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3 after Hasan, a Muslum, was convicted of opening fire on a room full of unarmed soldiers, killing 13 of them and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.
Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice on Wednesday, said, “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.” Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and that more details would follow.
Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who held the rank of major, walked into a medical building on Nov. 5, 2009, where soldiers were waiting in long lines to receive immunizations and medical clearance for deployment. He shouted “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun. He also shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.
Hasan said it was an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims. A military judge barred him from presenting that as a defense during his 2013 trial. Hasan was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the back by law enforcement, and he now uses a wheelchair.
Hasan could seek a lengthy delay of his execution, though given his behavior at trial, he may not want to.
After firing his lawyers and representing himself, Hasan began his portion of the trial by telling jurors he was the gunman. He said little else over the next three weeks, which convinced his court-appointed standby lawyers that Hasan’s only goal was to get a death sentence.
The military called nearly 90 witnesses, but Hasan rested his case without calling a single person to testify in his defense and made no closing argument. Yet he leaked documents during the trial to journalists that revealed him telling military mental health workers that he could “ still be a martyr ” if executed.
