US confirms it will livestream public execution by a firing squad

The date of the execution has also been revealed

The Pentagon said that the execution which is due to take place on 3 December will be “public” for everyone to see.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the public execution of Nidal Malik Hasan on Thursday.

Hasan killed 13 people in a mass shooting in Texas, in 2009.

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.

What the US military chief said about the execution

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”.

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.

One user noted that: “He deserves to die, but we are not barbarians, the country doesn’t need to watch this on TV.”

He was also asked if Hasan had made any final requests or reached out to the Trump administration.

“Don't care. We'll see him on December 3rd”, Hegseth said.

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

It was in April 1961, however, the last time when a US military execution took place.

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.

SWAT team members converge on a building where the lone gunman went on a shooting spree November 5, 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas. Thirty were wounded in the deadly rampage that left thirteen dead. Image credit: US Army via Getty Images

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 located.

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

Undated handout photo of Nidal Malik Hasan from the website of the US Government Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Credit: Getty Images

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.

A Tennessee death row inmate, Christa Pike, last week survived two doses of lethal injection.