The Pentagon says it will livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former US Army psychiatrist convicted of shooting dead 13 people at the Fort Hood military base in Texas in 2009, making it the first public US execution in decades. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the plan in a television interview this week, and a Pentagon official confirmed on Thursday, October 8, that the execution — set for December 3 at Fort Hood — will be streamed, according to CNN.
Key facts
- Hasan, now 56, is to be executed by an Army firing squad at Fort Hood at 1pm local time on December 3, a date set by Acting Secretary of the Army Adam Telle, CNN reports.
- Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the firing squad plan was recommended by Hegseth and approved by President Donald Trump.
- It would be the US military’s first execution since 1961 and its first by firing squad since 1945, when Private Eddie Slovik was put to death for desertion, the ABC reports.
- Hegseth told conservative outlet Real America’s Voice: “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” adding that people needed to understand there were serious consequences.
What the Pentagon has said
Hegseth made the comments in an interview with podcaster Jack Posobiec aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on Wednesday, CNN reports, and later confirmed the livestream in a post on X. He said the execution would be held at 1pm because that was the hour of the attack, and that soldiers with rifles would form the firing squad.
Asked whether Hasan had made final requests or contacted the Trump administration, Hegseth said he did not care and would see him on December 3, according to the ABC and CBS News. The official who confirmed the stream spoke on condition of anonymity and said details would follow. The ABC reports the Pentagon initially referred questions about publicity to the Army, which did not respond to CNN.
The 2009 attack and the court-martial
Hasan, an Army psychiatrist from Virginia at the time, opened fire on November 5, 2009, at a medical processing building at Fort Hood where soldiers were awaiting checks and vaccinations before deploying. Thirteen people were killed and 32 injured, most of them soldiers. He was shot by police during his arrest and left partially paralysed and using a wheelchair.
A military jury convicted him in July 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder, and sentenced him to death. Hasan represented himself, called no witnesses and did not deny the charges, the ABC reports. He told the panel he was targeting soldiers bound for Afghanistan. CBS News reports the Supreme Court declined to take up his appeal over the clearing of the courtroom at his trial.
Legal and regulatory obstacles
Army Regulation 190-55 specifies who may witness a military execution and bars minors, CNN reports, though the Army’s provost marshal general may waive provisions so long as no law or higher regulation is broken. Yahoo News Australia reports a military execution requires presidential approval, appellate review and a final ruling on legality.
Lawyer John Mills told the BBC the decision to livestream is unprecedented in the modern era and on uncertain legal terrain, and said he would be surprised if the execution happened. Yale Law School visiting lecturer Eugene R Fidell told the BBC the remaining proceedings could outlast Trump’s term.
Reaction and the wider death penalty debate
Republican Senator Thom Tillis called the plan “beyond disgusting” and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy called public executions “medieval”, CNN reports. Texas Tech law professor Geoffrey Corn told CBS News the plan raised significant moral questions beyond the death penalty itself. Fordham law professor Deborah Denno told the BBC no execution has ever been livestreamed, and that doing so would force unprecedented transparency.
The ABC reports the Trump administration recently added firing squad, electrocution and gas asphyxiation to federal execution options, partly because of difficulties administering lethal injections — and that a woman in Tennessee survived a lethal injection attempt days earlier.
On South Carolina, the sources differ. The ABC says the state carried out one firing squad execution last year, the first in the US in 15 years; CBS News says the method was used there three times last year, the country’s first since 2010. The two accounts agree on when the method resumed — 2010 and “15 years” point to the same gap — so the disagreement is only over how many times South Carolina used it in 2025. Neither outlet had published a correction when this brief was written, and the count remains unresolved here.
This is part of Fiji News’ daily world brief on international current affairs. Also in the series: our Fiji News world brief on US border technology and other overseas stories we are tracking.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was the last public execution in the United States?
CBS News reports the last public execution in the US appeared to be in 1936, when Rainey Bethea was hanged for rape in Kentucky before a crowd reported at around 20,000. Yahoo News Australia, citing the BBC, says a public execution of Hasan would be the first in the US in almost a century.
Which countries carried out public executions last year?
According to Amnesty International data cited by Yahoo News Australia, more than 2,700 executions were carried out across 17 countries last year, but only two states did so publicly: Iran, with 11 known public executions in 2025, and Afghanistan, with six. The same data ranks China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United States as the countries with the most executions.
Where would the livestream actually be shown?
It is unclear, Yahoo News Australia reports. Meta — the owner of Facebook, Instagram and Threads — explicitly bans any livestream of capital punishment, TikTok bans extremely graphic or disturbing content, and X removes footage of a person’s death at the request of family or an authorised representative. Truth Social, owned by President Donald Trump, has no user livestream feature, the report says.
Could Hasan still stop the execution in court?
Lawyer John Mills told the BBC, as reported by Yahoo News Australia, that Hasan’s appellate process is not over and that he is likely to seek review of his conviction and sentence in federal court, which would probably stay the execution.
