US President Donald Trump ended days of public and political controversy over the planned execution of former Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan. In a post on his social media platform, Trump sharply attacked Hasan, calling him "an evil and treasonous man," and announced that the execution will proceed by firing squad as planned, but without a live broadcast.
Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, carried out one of the deadliest mass shootings in US military history in 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas. Thirteen people were murdered in the attack, including a soldier who was pregnant, and 32 others were seriously wounded.
Trump also addressed the intelligence failure that preceded the massacre: "The FBI under the Barack Hussein Obama administration intercepted electronic communications between Hasan and radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki," the president wrote. "Task force investigators determined at the time that Hasan's emails did not constitute a threat, an assessment that was later defined as a major intelligence failure of the Obama administration."
The question of whether to broadcast the execution has sparked heated debate in Washington in recent days, after officials in the administration and the Pentagon floated the idea of livestreaming the execution as a deterrent.
Trump acknowledged that he had wrestled with the issue: "I think broadcasting the execution for all to see could have served as a powerful deterrent for the world, showing how America deals with terrorists and scum like Hasan." However, the president explained the reasoning behind his final decision: "Many good people with good intentions preferred not to watch him die, not in a live broadcast and not through any other visual means."
The execution, scheduled for December 3, will be the first carried out by the US military in 65 years. Though the event will not be broadcast to the general public, the president made clear that the bereaved families will have their moment: "The execution will be viewable up close and frontally by the immediate family members of the victims, if they choose to do so. They deserve to see justice done."
