Trump’s America will broadcast an execution via live stream

In a statement, the Department of Defence announced that the execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of the Fort Hood shooting, will be streamed live to allow the public to watch it. It was Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth who, on Thursday, expressed the hope that the execution would be public: “He will be executed by a firing squad. As it should be. We will ensure that everyone can watch the execution. Let it be public. Because people need to understand that this sort of thing has serious consequences,” Hegseth said in an interview with the far-right political activist Jack Posobiec.

The Department of Defence has granted the Defence Secretary’s request. The execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan will be broadcast live on 3 December. On this occasion, for the first time in history, the US Army will broadcast the event live on the internet. No military execution has taken place in the United States since 13 April 1961, when Private John A. Bennett was hanged after being convicted of rape and attempted murder. According to the Death Penalty Information Centre, the last execution by firing squad in the army took place on 9 November 1945.

Nidal Malik Hasan is a former US Army psychiatrist who, in 2009, opened fire on dozens of people at the Soldier Readiness Processing Centre at Fort Hood, Texas, where troops were preparing for deployment to Afghanistan. He killed thirteen people and wounded thirty-one. The motive for the massacre was religious. Hasan represented himself in court and claimed that the prospect of being sent to Afghanistan had made him realise he had been on the wrong side in a war against Islam. He was left partially paralysed as a result of the injuries he sustained, caused by the officers who responded to the scene of the attack, and is confined to a wheelchair.