The Pentagon has confirmed that the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, revealing plans for the first US military execution in more than 65 years.
The Army announced this week that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3 after Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.
Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice on Wednesday, said, “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.”
Pentagon officials clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and that more details would follow.
Hasan, a US-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, opened fire on November 5, 2009, at a medical facility in the sprawling Fort Hood base, which served as a staging point for soldiers to deploy to combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Twelve of the dead and 30 of the wounded were soldiers. Hasan was shot and partially paralyzed by a civilian police officer who responded to the attack.
It was also gathered that Hasan opposed the US military’s occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and that he had spoken online with an alleged Al-Qaeda figure, radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen subsequently killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.