Date announced for first US military firing squad execution since 1945 after Trump's order

It has been 65 years since the US military last carried out an execution, but that looks set to end on December 3rd.

Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army major convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, will face a firing squad at the same base where the attack happened.

Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle announced the date in a social media post, according to the Daily Mail. He said the execution will take place at Fort Hood, more than 17 years after the massacre. It comes a day after Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed that Donald Trump had approved it.

"Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended, and President Donald J Trump has approved, Death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009," Parnell wrote on social media.

He added: “The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”

Trump's approval has set a series of procedural steps in motion, but Hasan could put them on hold, potentially for years, with a habeas corpus appeal in the civilian federal court system, according to an article published in May in the magazine Army Lawyer.

What happened at Fort Hood in 2009?

The shooting took place in November 2009. Hasan walked into Fort Hood medical readiness building carrying two guns and several magazines of ammunition, shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’, Arabic for ‘God is great’, and opened fire on soldiers awaiting medical tests and vaccines.

13 people were killed and 32 others wounded, making it the deadliest attack on a domestic military installation in US history.

Hasan was shot and paralysed from the waist down in the gunfire, and was sentenced to death in 2013. At trial, he told jurors he had 'switched sides' in what he called America's war with Islam.

He admitted starting the rampage and said he wanted to stop American soldiers being deployed to kill fellow Muslims, while government lawyers said he did not want to go on an impending deployment to Afghanistan.

The Department of Defense classed the attack as workplace violence rather than terrorism.

The Justice Department announced earlier this year that it would adopt firing squads as a permitted method of execution as the Trump administration moves to expedite capital punishment cases.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement: “The prior administration failed in its duty to protect the American people by refusing to pursue and carry out the ultimate punishment against the most dangerous criminals, including terrorists, child murderers, and cop killers.”

How many people have been executed by firing squad in the US?

At least 144 civilian prisoners have been executed by shooting in America since 1608, nearly all in Utah. Only four have happened since 1977, when capital punishment resumed. The first of those, Gary Gilmore, waived his appeals and volunteered to be executed, replying “Let's do it” when asked for his last words.

Brad Sigmon, a South Carolina man, was also executed by firing squad in March 2025.

Five states currently allow the method: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah.