Pentagon says the Fort Hood firing-squad execution will be livestreamed on 3 December

The United States will livestream the Army's firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan on 3 December at Fort Hood, Texas, a Pentagon official told Reuters on Thursday. Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the base on 5 November 2009. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said details would follow and did not describe the feed, the platform, or who would be allowed to watch.

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth had already said he intended the execution to be public. On the Human Events Daily podcast, in remarks posted on Thursday, he said the decision to use a firing squad at Fort Hood on a Thursday at 1 p.m., the approximate time, day and place of the 2009 shooting, was a no brainer. He said people needed to be able to watch, because people needed to understand that there are serious consequences. Associated Press reporting placed a similar comment on Real America's Voice, given while Hegseth was aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln before the carrier's return to San Diego.

The first military firing squad since 1945

Reuters reported that Hasan is set to become the first person executed by firing squad by the US military since 1945, shortly after the end of the Second World War. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell had said on Monday that President Donald Trump had approved the execution. Asked whether Hasan had made any final requests or approached the administration, Hegseth told the outlet, Don't care. We'll see him on December 3rd.

The gap between a presidential approval, announced by Parnell on Monday, and a livestream, confirmed by an unnamed Pentagon official on Thursday, is the new fact. Hegseth had said the execution would be public. The official converted that adjective into a method: a livestream. Neither statement named the service that will carry the feed, whether it will be delayed, or whether families of the dead will have a separate arrangement. Those points were left for the details the official said would follow.

Trump has criticised public executions in Iran and has at times cited the risk of protesters being killed by the Iranian government as a reason for military action, the Associated Press noted in the same cycle. The administration has not addressed that contrast in the statements released on Hasan. The record on Thursday is the date, the place, the method, and the decision to put a camera on it.

What is fixed and what is not

The fixed points are these. The execution is set for 3 December, a Thursday, at 1 p.m., at Fort Hood. The method is a firing squad. The condemned man is Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted for the 2009 attack that killed 13 and injured 32. The secretary has said the match of day, hour and place to the original attack was intentional. A Pentagon official has said the event will be livestreamed. Parnell has said the president approved it.

What is not fixed, on the public record, is the audience. A livestream can mean a closed circuit for officials, a feed to news organisations, or an open link. The official declined to say which. Phil Stewart reported the Reuters account. Until the Pentagon publishes the arrangements, the operational fact is the announcement itself: the first US military firing-squad execution in eighty years is scheduled, and the department says it will be watched live.