This is very long overdue. Nidal Hasan, who murdered his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009 in an act of Islamic terrorism, may finally receive the death penalty.

The Pentagon has apparently asked the president for permission to carry out the death sentence that Hasan received back in 2013. Remember, Hasan was tried in a military court. While his appeals have stretched out for years at this point, the process has finally come to an end. All that needs to happen is formal approval from the Commander-in-Chief.

The execution, if approved by Trump, would be the first carried out by the military since 1961. Hasan, a former Army Major and psychiatrist turned radical Islamic terrorist, killed 13 people and wounded 32 others during his notorious rampage on the Army base in 2009.

“I am 100 percent committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan,” (Secretary of War Pete) Hegseth exclusively told the DCNF. “This savage terrorist deserves the harshest lawful punishment for his 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood. The victims and survivors deserve justice without delays.”

Hasan is currently imprisoned in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Hasan lost his final appeal to his 2013 death sentence in April 2025, according to the San Antonio Express.

Let’s remember that the Fort Hood attack was not a case of “workplace violence,” as the Obama administration tried to characterize it back in 2009. This was a deliberate act of terrorism.

In fact, not only did Hasan display signs of radicalization, but acting as his own attorney he tried to plead guilty during the trial and stated that he had decided to “switch sides” in what he believed was a U.S. war against Islam. Army prosecutors could have incorporated federal terrorism charges into the case, but for reasons that are not clear, they instead charged him with murder and attempted murder. The judge restricted the use of evidence not related to the specific charges, therefore dismissing the possibility of labeling the attack an act of terrorism. In closing, the prosecutor argued that Hasan was motivated to kill fellow soldiers (in this purported case of “workplace violence”) as part of his “jihad duty.” Words matter, not only for the victims and their families but also for the development of effective policy to counter violent extremism.

In 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces upheld Hasan’s death sentence. He then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case. In April of this year, they turned him down, meaning that he was officially out of options. If Joe Biden was still president, there is a good chance that he might have commuted Hasan’s sentence to life in prison, as he did for so many federal death row inmates – except for the political hot potatoes. The Fort Hood shooting was a mass murder, and definitely a political hot potato. Biden may have let Hasan sit on death row indefinitely. President Trump is not likely to do that.

Under the Army’s regulations, the Army staff will put forward the recommendation for Hasan’s execution. The packet will then be passed to the Army secretary, then the Secretary of War to give “additional recommendation to the President,” the DOW official told DCNF.

“Inmate Hasan’s packet is now in the staffing process for presidential action,” the DOW official said.

It is well past time for Hasan to receive the final consequences for his terror attack. He’s had 16 years longer than the thirteen people he murdered, and I’m fairly confident that those he wounded are not going to ask the president to spare him. The appeals process is over, there is no doubt to his guilt, and it’s well past time for justice to take its course.

Featured image: Fort Hood Memorial Stone honoring the victims of the terror attack, cropped, U.S. Army photo via Wikimedia Commons, public domain