The Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, said this Friday (9) that he does not know whether the live broadcast, planned by the Pentagon, of the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan will actually take place. The former soldier killed 13 people at the Fort Hood military base in Texas in 2009.
"I don't know if it's actually going to happen," Vance said, adding that if the execution was broadcast he wouldn't watch it.
“I’m not going to watch.”
Earlier, Donald Trump called Nidal Hasan a "maniac" and said he "deserves" to die by firing squad.
According to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the former soldier will be executed by firing squad in December in a live broadcast. This will be the first public execution in the US in 90 years.
"Nowadays, if you spend two days in jail, that's a lot. Today, you can do practically anything and nothing happens. But we're changing that, as you're seeing. We're going to apply the death penalty to a man who killed 14 soldiers a few years ago. Death penalty by firing squad. And he deserves it. He killed and injured many, many people. He's a maniac," Trump said at an event at the White House.
This week, Trump personally authorized Hasan's execution, something that the US Constitution requires for the execution of a military or former military member.
United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated on Thursday (8) that the public will be able to watch the execution of Nidal Hasan. The sentence is scheduled for December 3 and will be carried out by firing squad.
In an interview with Real America's Voice, Hegseth said the army will ensure that people can watch the execution. According to him, public exposure would serve to show that crimes of this type have serious consequences in the USA.
It is not yet clear whether there will be spectators at the scene or whether the execution will be broadcast online or on television.
Asked whether Hasan had made any final requests or contacted the Trump administration, Hegseth responded only:
"I don't care. We'll see him on December 3rd."
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said that live broadcasting the shooting of a person sentenced to death is a form of "torture".
"As the High Commissioner has highlighted in reaction to public executions in Afghanistan and Iran, public executions constitute a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment," the High Commissioner's office said in a message sent to AFP.
The last public execution in the country took place in 1936, in Kentucky. On that occasion, Rainey Bethea, a black man convicted of raping a white woman, was hanged in front of a crowd.
The case would mark the first military shooting in the United States since 1945. The last one happened to soldier Eddie Slovik, killed in France due to desertion during World War II, according to broadcaster NPR.
The last execution of a United States military personnel occurred in 1961, when John A. Bennett was hanged in Kansas after being convicted of the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl.
Shooting is a rare method of execution in the country. Only five states — Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah — authorize this practice, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
In 2025, South Carolina carried out its first execution by firing squad. It was the first time in 15 years that the method had been used in the United States.
