By Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (Reuters) – The US will livestream the Army’s upcoming firing squad execution on December 3 of Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in a 2009 shooting spree, a Pentagon official said, in what would be an unprecedented move.
Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, is set to become the first person to be executed by firing squad by the US military since 1945, shortly after the end of World War Two.
The Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not offer more information and said details would follow.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier told the Human Events Daily podcast he planned to make Hasan’s execution public, according to video of his comments posted on social media on Thursday.
Hegseth said deciding to execute Hasan by firing squad at Fort Hood on a Thursday at 1 pm – the approximate time, day of the week and location of Hasan’s shooting – was a “no brainer.”
“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public. Because people need to understand that … there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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