Washington, Oct 8. (dpa/GNA) – US Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, said the public would be able to watch the upcoming execution by firing squad of a former US Army major, convicted of a mass shooting at a military base in Texas.
“He’s gonna get a firing squad of soldiers. As it should be,” Hegseth told the right-wing US broadcaster Real America’s Voice, referring to former army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan.
“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.” The execution is scheduled for December 3 at Fort Hood in Texas.
Hasan, who is from Virginia, opened fire on soldiers at the Fort Hood military base in 2009, killing 13 people and injuring 32 others.
He was sentenced to death by a military court in 2013. At his trial, Hasan said he had carried out the attack to protect Taliban members in Afghanistan from US troops.
Public executions have long history in US. Public executions by firing squad were used as a deterrent in the United States during the Civil War in the 19th century.
The last execution of a service member by firing squad under the US military justice system took place in 1945. The last fully public execution in the US was in 1936, when a man was hanged before thousands of spectators in Kentucky.
It was initially unclear whether Hegseth was proposing a similarly public execution, one attended only by selected witnesses, or a broadcast of the proceedings.
GNA