Killer 13 people decided to execute live

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegset said the execution of Nidal Hassan, a former military psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, would be a public event when the sentence is carried out later this year. A Defense Ministry spokesman later confirmed that the execution would be broadcast live.

The Pentagon Secretary said that the execution team will carry out the sentence in Fort Hood, Texas, on Thursday, December 3, at 13:00. It will be the first U.S. military execution in more than 60 years.

“This was an attack by a radical Islamist in military uniform in the ranks of the armed forces, and so he will get a team of soldiers to shoot, as it should be, and we will make sure that people can watch this, that it is public, because people have to understand that there can be serious consequences for these people,” Hegseth said.

Asked if Hassan made a final request or would address Trump, Hegseth said: "It doesn't matter." We will see him on December 3.””.

On November 5, 2009, Hassan opened fire at a medical center at a military base in Texas, killing 13 people and injuring dozens more. In 2013, a military jury sentenced him to death, and he has since been held at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. He exhausted his appeals last year, allowing Donald Trump to approve the sentence this week on Hegset's recommendation.

Investigators found that in the months before the attack, Hassan exchanged 18 emails with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric who was later killed in a U.S. drone strike. At a military tribunal, Hassan said he acted to prevent American soldiers from going to Afghanistan to kill his fellow Muslims before he was sent to Afghanistan. An audit conducted by William Webster, the former director of the FBI, concluded that the bureau should have scrutinized his correspondence more thoroughly.

In an interview, Hegseth said Barack Obama called the attack “workplace violence.” The Pentagon initially viewed the shooting as a workplace violence incident rather than a terrorist attack, which affected victims' eligibility for Purple Hearts and other combat-related benefits.

But there is no evidence that Obama himself used the phrase, according to The Guardian. At a memorial service days after the attack, he instead called the victims Americans who had failed to escape the “horrors of war,” calling the shooting a tragedy and saying the killer would stand trial.

The last known case of military shootings in the U.S. occurred in November 1945, but the Trump administration tried to bring it back during Trump's second presidential term to speed up the handling of death penalty cases. Five US states allow firing squads: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah.

The latest annual survey of human rights defenders, in addition to the United States, lists Afghanistan, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen among countries where firing squads are still used.