Trump approved the first execution in 60 years of a soldier who killed 13 people at Fort Hood

U.S. President Donald Trump commuted the death sentence of former U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan, who carried out a shooting at Fort Hood military base in Texas in 2009.

Hasan opened fire at a medical facility where service members were undergoing medical examinations before being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others.

On the recommendation of U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hagseth, Trump approved the execution by firing squad. The secretary is to determine the time and place of the execution.

If the sentence is carried out, it will be the first execution of a U.S. service member since 1961. At that time, the condemned man was executed by hanging. The last known case of execution by firing squad in the U.S. occurred in 1945.

Hassan was sentenced to death in 2013 on 45 counts of first-degree murder. During his arrest, a police officer wounded him, leaving him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.

Source: Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell.

In the U.S. state of Texas, 40-year-old LeJames Norman, who had been sentenced to death for the 2005 murders of three people, was executed on September 16. The sentence was carried out by lethal injection of pentobarbital at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.