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The Pentagon announced Monday that Nidal Hasan, who was sentenced to death for the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, will be executed by firing squad, marking the first U.S. military execution in more than 60 years.
The shooting on the U.S. military base left 13 people dead and wounded 32 others.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth recommended the execution, and it was approved by President Donald Trump.
The time and place of the execution have not yet been announced, but Army policy outlines that executions must happen within 150 days of the president approving it, but no sooner than 60 days.
On Nov. 5, 2009, Hasan, then an Army psychiatrist, opened fire at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at the Fort Hood military base, killing 12 soldiers and one civilian before he was shot, severely wounded and arrested.
In this photo released by the Bell County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who is charged with murder in the Fort Hood shootings, is seen in a booking photo after being moved to the Bell County Jail on April 9, 2010 in Belton, Texas. Hasan was transferred early April 9, 2010 from Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio to Bell County Jail in Belton, Texas.
Handout/Getty Images
Hasan was convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder and sentenced to death in 2013. He was sent to a military detention center at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
He is one of four death row inmates in the Army justice system.
The announcement of his execution comes after ABC News reported in June that the Army had been planning military executions, according to internal documents and officials familiar with the matter.
FORT HOOD, TX – NOVEMBER 10: A fallen soldiers memorial is seen in front of the podium where the memorial service that U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will attend for the thirteen victims of the shooting rampage by U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan on November 10, 2009 in Fort Hood, Texas. Hasan, an army psychiatrist, killed 13 people and wounded 30 in a shooting at the military base on November 5, 2009. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The plan, dubbed “Operation Resolute Justice” and issued internally in February, directed Army officials to coordinate with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer condemned prisoners from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the federal execution facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the Justice Department carried out a series of non-military federal executions during Trump’s first term.
Army regulation dictates that at least two media outlets should be selected to witness the execution.
The military has not executed a service member since 1961, when Pvt. John Bennett was put to death after being convicted of the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl in Austria.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
