Trump authorizes Army firing squad for Fort Hood shooter nearly 17 years later

President Donald Trump has approved death by U.S. Army firing squad for Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army officer who opened fire on unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood and left 13 dead.

Fox News reported that Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced the decision after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recommended the method, nearly 17 years after the November 5, 2009, massacre that also wounded 32 others.

Parnell laid out the core facts in plain terms.

“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,”

He added the toll and the words Hasan shouted that day.

“He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ during the attack.”

Parnell closed the announcement with a direct line: “Judgment day for Hasan has finally come.” The Army secretary will now set the time and place. If carried out, it would mark the first successful presidential sign-off on a U.S. military execution since 1961.

Hasan, then an Army major stationed at the Texas post, took a pistol and a.357 revolver to noon prayers at a mosque before driving to the soldier readiness processing facility. He unloaded into the greatest density of soldiers he could find. Law enforcement ended the rampage in a firefight. Hasan took multiple gunshot wounds, was detained, and went straight into intensive care.

From courtroom sentence to final presidential step

Four years after the attack, a court-martial convicted Hasan and sentenced him to death under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The death penalty sits at the top of that system for service members. Because the sentence was capital, the case moved automatically to the U.S. Army Criminal Court of Appeals and then to the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

An Army press release from the sentencing phase captured the weight of the testimony that closed the government’s case.

“In Hasan’s sentencing, lead prosecutor Col. Michael Mulligan rested the government’s case on the morning of Aug. 27, after two days of emotional testimony from surviving widows and parents of some of those murdered, Nov. 5, 2009,”

One of those witnesses was Joleen Cahill. She told the court her husband, retired Chief Warrant Officer Michael Cahill, gave his life trying to stop Hasan. She described the devastation that followed for her family. The same release explained the required appeal track once a death sentence is imposed.

A court upheld the death sentence in early 2025. Hasan’s lawyers then sought Supreme Court review on procedural objections to how the trial ran. The high court denied the petition. With the legal path cleared, the Department of War advanced the execution request. Hegseth recommended the firing squad. Trump approved it.

That sequence of presidential decisions on national security and accountability tracks the same decisive style readers have seen when Trump signed a Greenland security pact and unveiled plans for Arctic military bases.

AP News reported that Trump’s approval starts the final procedural steps, though Hasan could still try to slow the process with a habeas corpus appeal. Four men, including Hasan, sit on military death row at Fort Leavenworth. The military has not carried out a death sentence since 1961.

What the record shows about intent and history

A Sanity Board report recorded Hasan’s own words about the shooting: “I shot to kill.” The same report stated he denied depressive, manic, psychotic, anxiety, or cognitive symptoms during the attack. He later described himself in other settings as a soldier who had switched sides. The facts of the rampage never shifted.

Breitbart noted the 2013 death sentence and the long gap since the last military execution. Private John Bennett was hanged on April 13, 1961, after he attempted to murder an 11-year-old girl in Austria. In 2008, President George W. Bush approved a military execution, but a federal court stopped it. Trump’s signature now stands as the first successful presidential approval in more than six decades if the sentence is carried out.

That kind of follow-through on long-pending accountability also appears when the Trump team flags $1.22 billion in suspected fraud linked to Biden-era COVID contracts.

Just The News confirmed the same core announcement from Parnell and underscored that the Secretary of the Army has not yet set a date or location. The process remains inside military channels.

Victims, process, and the weight of delay

The attack hit an administrative building full of unarmed soldiers preparing for deployment. Thirteen never came home. Thirty-two carried wounds. Families sat through the court-martial and the years of automatic appeals that the military justice system requires in capital cases. The early 2025 affirmance and the Supreme Court denial finally removed the last major legal barriers.

The Washington Examiner reported the identical Hegseth recommendation and Trump approval, framing the moment as the arrival of judgment for the man who shouted “Allahu Akbar” while killing and wounding dozens.

Readers watching Trump’s major project rollouts will recognize the same pattern of clearing obstacles and moving forward, much like when Trump set to unveil America’s largest steel plant ever in Iowa.

The New York Post added that Hasan killed 12 U.S. service members and one civilian in the 2009 attack. It also noted prior internal discussion of carrying out long-delayed military sentences. The Army secretary still holds the final scheduling authority.

The Supreme Court denial that preceded the presidential step sits in the same arena of high-court outcomes that later prompted Trump’s own comments on his Supreme Court appointments.

Hasan’s path from the Fort Hood processing center to death row to this presidential approval has taken nearly seventeen years. The military justice system imposed the sentence. The appeals ran their course. The Secretary of War recommended the method. The President signed off. The remaining task belongs to the Army secretary who will name the day and the place.

Justice delayed is still justice owed. The families who buried thirteen Americans and the soldiers who survived the wounds have waited long enough for the sentence to mean what it said.