UN says Nidal Hasan execution livestream would be torture

The UN human rights office said Friday that livestreaming the planned US military firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan would amount to torture, after a Pentagon official said the killing would be broadcast live.

Hasan, a former US Army psychiatrist, was sentenced to death for killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009. His execution is set for December 3.

“It will be livestreamed. Details will follow,” a Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

“The livestreaming of an execution is tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture,” the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a message sent to AFP.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a video posted on official Pentagon accounts that Hasan was “going to get a firing squad of soldiers” and that officials would ensure people could watch it publicly. Asked separately whether Hasan had made a final request, Hegseth said: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3.”

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told CNN the plan was “disgusting,” saying that while the United States has the death penalty, “public executions” are “medieval.”

The Pentagon said earlier this week that US President Donald Trump had approved Hasan’s execution. If carried out, it would be the first US military execution since 1961 and the military’s first by firing squad since World War II.

Hasan was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013. He conducted his own defence, called no witnesses, gave no testimony and did not try to deny the charges. Court-appointed defence lawyers expressed concern that he was seeking execution.

The court was told Hasan opposed US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and had spoken online with Anwar al-Awlaki, an alleged Al-Qaeda figure later killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.