Execution of mass killer will not be livestreamed, Trump says

The US president has done a U-turn

Last week, it was announced that the execution of Hasan, the man behind the Fort Hood shooting, would be livestreamed.

The shooting, which happened in Texas in 2009, killed 13 people.

The Pentagon said that the execution, which is due to take place on 3 December, will be “public” for everyone to see, later confirmed by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

As he spoke to conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice News, Hegseth said: “We'll make sure that people are able to watch it”.

Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who murdered thirteen people in the Fort Hood shootings, seen here in April 2010. Photo released by the Bell County Sheriff's Office.

Hegseth confirmed the decision once more, as he quoted a post made on X (formerly Twitter) by CBS News.

“Correct”, was the defence secretary's short response.

Secretary Hegseth added that the American military has not executed a service member by firing squad since World War Two.

However, Trump has since confirmed that the execution will not be livestreamed.

Trump's U-turn

In a post today on Truth Social, Trump said the livestream would no longer go ahead.

He wrote: "I think streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan but, many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device."

He added: "He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed."

The last US military execution took place in April 1961.

That was done when US Army Private John Bennett was hanged.

He was convicted by court-martial of raping and attempting to murder an 11-year-old girl, while stationed in Austria.

The motives for the mass shooting as revealed by the convicted murderer

Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump approved the method of execution for Hasan.

The former army major was convicted of killing 13 people in a shooting spree in 2009, at Fort Hood Army post.

According to Hasan, 56, the attack was retaliation for the American wars in the Middle East and to protect Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

For the gravest of federal crimes, the Trump administration recently added death by firing squad to permissible forms of execution.

The other two forms of capital punishment are electrocution and gas asphyxiation.

Currently, including Hasan, four men are on the military's death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

In the US, at least five states authorise firing squads as a method of execution.

The state of South Carolina last year carried out the first such execution in the US in 15 years.

The expanding of number of federal execution options comes amid increasing difficulties in obtaining drugs for lethal injections.

Tennessee death row inmate, Christa Pike, survived two doses of lethal injection at the end of September.