The Pentagon has confirmed that the planned execution of Nidal Hasan, the former US Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, will be livestreamed, turning a military capital-punishment case into a public spectacle and raising stark questions about the use of execution as a demonstration of state power.
A Pentagon official confirmed the decision after Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of war, said the execution would be made available for public viewing. Hasan, now 56, was sentenced to death by a military jury in August 2013 after being convicted of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder.
“The Secretary is correct. It will be livestreamed. Details will follow,” the official told reporters.
Hasan opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun inside a medical facility at the sprawling Texas military base, killing 13 people and injuring others. The attack occurred weeks before he was due to deploy to Afghanistan. He was shot by police during his arrest and left partially paralysed, requiring a wheelchair.
Hegseth has championed the use of a firing squad and described the decision to carry out the execution at Fort Hood, on a Thursday at 1pm — broadly matching the timing and location of the original attack — as a “no-brainer”.
“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” he said. “Because people need to understand that…there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
Asked whether Hasan had made any final requests, Hegseth replied: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3.”
The comments signal an unusually overt approach to military punishment, with the execution presented not only as the conclusion of a criminal case but also as a public warning. The decision to livestream it intensifies that message, placing the administration’s approach to capital punishment under scrutiny.
Under US military law, a president must approve a military execution by firing squad. The Pentagon disclosed that Donald Trump had approved the method on Hegseth’s recommendation. The White House has declined to say whether Trump also supports livestreaming the execution, referring questions to the Pentagon.
Hegseth invoked the second world war in defending the method, saying: “It hasn’t been since World War II that we’ve done that. Well, kind of like the mentality we had in World War II.”
The historical context is significant. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that the last known US military executions by firing squad took place in 1945. The group Death Penalty Action has said Hasan’s case would mark the first military execution since 1961, when the prisoner was hanged.
The case also comes amid a broader expansion of permissible execution methods under the Trump administration, which has added firing squads, electrocution and gas asphyxiation for the gravest federal crimes. South Carolina carried out the first US firing-squad execution in 15 years in 2025.
Hasan’s conviction followed one of the deadliest attacks on a US military installation. But the decision to broadcast his death would mark a separate and consequential step: making the execution itself part of the administration’s public message on punishment.
The Pentagon has confirmed the livestream plan. The wider question is whether a public execution will be treated as a demonstration of justice — or as a spectacle whose political symbolism outlasts the sentence it is intended to carry out.
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