US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the planned execution of convicted military base shooter Nidal Hasan by firing squad will be open to public viewing, although the Pentagon has yet to clarify how the arrangement will work.
Hegseth made the disclosure in a video released on Thursday by official Pentagon accounts on X during an interview with right-wing influencer Jack Posobiec aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.
He said Hasan would face a firing squad comprising soldiers, adding that the public would be allowed to witness the execution to underscore the consequences of such crimes.
However, when asked to explain what he meant by a public execution, a Pentagon spokesperson referred enquiries to the US Army, which subsequently directed questions back to the Defence Department.
The Pentagon had announced earlier in the week that US President Donald Trump had approved Hasan’s execution over the November 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, which claimed 13 lives and left 30 others injured. Twelve of those killed and all 30 wounded were military personnel.
Hasan, who was shot and partially paralysed by a civilian police officer during the attack, was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 for carrying out the assault, which prosecutors linked to Al-Qaeda-inspired extremism.
During his trial, 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, Hasan’s execution would be the first execution by the US military since 1961.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International reported that at least 17 public executions were documented worldwide in the previous year, including six in Afghanistan and 11 in Iran.
