US President Donald Trump has cast doubt on plans to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood military base in Texas, even as he backed carrying out the death sentence.
Trump said on Friday that authorities were still deciding whether the execution, scheduled for December 3, would be broadcast publicly. The plan has drawn criticism from lawmakers across party lines, human rights groups and religious leaders over concerns about publicly displaying an execution.
“They are making a determination about that, but he will be killed,” Trump said. “I really don't care how he goes, as long as he goes.”
The Pentagon had indicated earlier that the execution would be livestreamed after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military would ensure people could watch it. However, Vice President JD Vance also expressed uncertainty about whether the broadcast would take place.
Vance described Hasan's attack as the worst terrorist attack on American soil outside the September 11, 2001, attacks, but said he would not watch the execution if it was streamed live. The proposed broadcast has faced opposition from both Republicans and Democrats.
Republican Representative Austin Scott said Hasan should be executed but argued that livestreaming executions was associated with jihadist groups. Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Hasan should face justice but questioned whether the United States should associate itself with public executions, comparing the practice to those carried out by Iran and the Taliban.
The United Nations human rights office also condemned the proposal. A spokesperson said livestreaming an execution would amount to a public execution and breach the absolute prohibition of torture. Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the plan a “barbaric promotion of a culture of death” and said it should be reconsidered.
Technology companies YouTube, Meta and X had not immediately responded to requests for comment on whether they would permit the broadcast. TikTok pointed to its policy prohibiting graphic incidents and violence, including the shooting of an individual.
Who is Nidal Hasan and what happened at Fort Hood?
Hasan, a Virginia native and former Army psychiatrist, fatally shot 13 people and wounded dozens more at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009. Most of those killed were soldiers, and the attack remains one of the deadliest shootings at a US military installation.
Hasan was shot by a civilian police officer who responded to the scene and was left paralysed from the waist down. During his 2013 court-martial, Hasan represented himself and did not contest the charges by presenting a defence. He was sentenced to death by a military jury that year.
Court-appointed defence lawyers had expressed concerns that he was seeking execution. 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 later killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.
If carried out as scheduled, Hasan's execution by firing squad would be the first US military firing squad execution since 1945, according to Hegseth. The last US military execution took place in 1961, when John Bennett was hanged for rape and attempted murder.
