Trump Drops Plan to Livestream Fort Hood Execution

Donald Trump has set aside a plan to livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009. The Guardian

Trump said Hasan will die as scheduled by firing squad, but the execution will not be streamed. He said the immediate families of the victims may view it in person if they choose.

Hasan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on December 3. Reuters His sentence will be the first U.S. military execution in more than 60 years. It would have been the first execution in U.S. history to be publicly broadcast.

Trump argued that broadcasting the execution might have been a strong deterrent for the world to witness how America deals with terrorists. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had said last week that the execution would be a public event.

Hegseth said in an interview with Real America's Voice that he supported the public execution because people need to understand there are serious consequences. Hasan was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by law enforcement during the shooting and now uses a wheelchair.

The proposal to stream the execution drew criticism from several directions. Many U.S. lawmakers from across the political spectrum condemned the announcement and urged Hegseth to reconsider.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that broadcasting the killing would amount to a public execution and breach the absolute prohibition of torture. The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned the Pentagon's livestream plan as a barbaric promotion of a culture of death.