Soldier who killed 13 people in 2009 will still be executed, but president said ‘people would rather not watch him die’

Hasan, who was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by law enforcement officers during the shooting at Fort Hood, now uses a wheelchair.

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said last week that the execution of Hasan would be a public event. Hasan’s sentence will be the first military execution in more than 60 years, and would have been the first in US history to be publicly broadcast.

In a statement to the Guardian on Thursday, a spokesperson for the Pentagon said Trump and Hegseth “spoke about the decision to not livestream Hasan’s execution” before Trump’s statement. Hegesth “supports the President’s decision, and they are completely aligned”, they added.