President Donald Trump has approved an Army firing squad to execute Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced the decision on X on Monday and said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had recommended it.

"The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution," Parnell wrote. "Judgement day for Hasan has finally come." No date has been announced. Army policy requires an execution to take place no sooner than 60 days and no later than 150 days after the president approves it, ABC News reported.

It would be the military's first execution of one of its own in more than 60 years. The last was Pvt. John Bennett, put to death in 1961 for the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl in Austria, ABC News said. Firing squads are rare, too. South Carolina used one three times last year, the first such executions in the U.S. since 2010, CBS News reported.

On Nov. 5, 2009, Hasan opened fire inside the base's Soldier Readiness Processing Center, where troops were standing in line for vaccinations. He killed 12 soldiers and one civilian and wounded 32 others before a civilian police officer shot him, leaving him paralyzed.

A military jury convicted Hasan in 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder and sentenced him to death. He acted as his own lawyer, called no witnesses and did not deny the charges, the Guardian reported. His standby lawyers worried that he was seeking the death penalty. At trial, he said he attacked to protect Islamic insurgents from American forces, CBS News reported.

His appeals dragged on for years. In 2024 he asked the Supreme Court to hear his case, saying his right to a public trial was violated. The justices declined last year, CBS News said. He is held at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and is one of four inmates on the Army's death row, according to ABC News.

In June, ABC News reported on an internal Army plan called "Operation Resolute Justice" that would move condemned prisoners to the federal execution facility in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Accounts of the death toll differ slightly. Most outlets count 13 dead, while the Washington Examiner counts 14, including an unborn baby.

What we know: Trump approved a firing-squad execution for Hasan, and the Army secretary will set the time and place.
What we don't: When and where it will happen, and what Hasan's lawyer will say. CBS News said it had asked for comment.