US Plans Public Firing Squad Execution for Fort Hood Shooter

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the planned execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan by firing squad will be public.

Hegseth made the remark in a video released by the Pentagon on Thursday, during an interview with right-wing influencer Jack Posobiec aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.

“He’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” Hegseth said.

“People need to understand that… there’s serious consequence for these types of things,” he added.

When asked to clarify what Hegseth meant by a public execution, a Pentagon spokesperson referred AFP to the US Army, which then directed the news agency back to the Pentagon.

The comments came after the Pentagon announced earlier in the week that US President Donald Trump had approved Hasan’s execution for the 2009 fatal shooting at Fort Hood, a US Army base in Texas.

Hasan sentenced to death over Fort Hood attack

Hasan, a former US Army psychiatrist, was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 for carrying out the attack, which killed 13 people and wounded 30 others.

Twelve of those killed and all 30 wounded were soldiers. Hasan was shot and partially paralysed by a civilian police officer who responded to the attack.

During the trial, the court heard that Hasan opposed US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and had communicated online with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born radical cleric linked to al-Qaeda who was later killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.

Hasan’s planned execution would be the first by the US military since 1961.

Public executions remain a human rights concern

According to Amnesty International, at least 17 public executions were documented worldwide in 2025, including six in Afghanistan and 11 in Iran.

Public executions have long drawn criticism from human rights organisations over concerns about human dignity and the use of capital punishment.

The Pentagon has not clarified how the proposed public execution of Hasan would be conducted or who would be permitted to witness it.