US circles: Livestream should show military execution

capital punishment

US circles: Livestream should show military execution

At the beginning of December, the USA wants to carry out a military execution for the first time in more than 60 years. It should be public, says the US Secretary of Defense. Now more details are becoming known.

The planned shooting of an assassin sentenced to death at a military base in the US state at the beginning of December Texas should be broadcast via live stream. An official from the Pentagon confirmed this to the German Press Agency. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had previously said that President Donald Trump The approved execution of a former US Army psychiatrist by firing squad was to take place in public.

It will be ensured that people can publicly observe the execution of Nidal Hasan, who committed a massacre at a military base in 2009, Hegseth told the right-wing conservative US broadcaster Real America’s Voice. “People need to understand that such acts have serious consequences.”

If the execution actually takes place, it would be the first military execution in the country, according to US media USA for more than 60 years. It is scheduled for December 3rd at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. The military psychiatrist at the time, Hasan, killed 13 people and injured 32 there.

Trump only recently approved his execution – a few days after an execution attempt failed in the US state of Tennessee. According to authorities, Christa Pike, who was convicted of murder, was given two doses of the drug pentobarbital, but she continued to live. The case has reignited the debate about the death penalty in the United States.

Public shootings were used as a deterrent in the USA, including during the American Civil War in the 19th century. The last execution by a US military firing squad took place in 1945. The last public execution in the United States was in 1936, when a man was hanged in the state of Kentucky in front of thousands of onlookers.

If the United States actually carries out a public execution again, it would bring it closer to states whose practices it likes to denounce elsewhere. Last year, according to the human rights organization Amnesty International at least 17 public executions took place: six in Afghanistan and eleven in Iran.

Such a process – especially when broadcast via livestream – raises many questions, such as what exactly Trump’s government is aiming for and whether there will be access restrictions to prevent children, for example, from watching the execution.

According to US media, the US military last executed an army member in 1961 for the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old during his deployment in Austria had been sentenced to death.

According to US media, if the sentence against Hasan is carried out, it would also be the first execution at the federal level since January 2021. Back then, Trump had 13 prisoners executed in the last weeks of his first term in office.