OMM Redaksiyası
The US homeland security secretary has defended a plan to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, rejecting concerns that a broadcast could encourage radicalisation or turn him into a martyr, according to BBC News.
“I don’t see an elevated risk,” Markwayne Mullin said on Sunday. “If you attack America, we will come after you, and we will make sure that the punishment fits the crime.”
Hasan, a former US Army major and psychiatrist, is due to be executed by firing squad in December for killing 13 soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas. The Trump administration has said it plans to livestream the execution, but a final decision has not been made.
The proposal, announced last week by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, has drawn criticism from politicians, academics and other experts. If carried out, it would be the first public execution in the United States in almost a century.
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska called the plan “gruesome”, saying a livestream was something she would expect “from terrorists and dictators, but not here in America”. In a post on “X”, she said it could give Hasan the martyrdom he sought and argued that the way justice is carried out matters as much as justice itself.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia warned that a public broadcast could increase security risks, fuel radicalisation and provide terrorist groups with propaganda, potentially putting US personnel and citizens abroad at greater risk.
Speaking on the “CBS” programme “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Mullin said the risks had been considered. He said he had no sympathy for Hasan and gave no thought to how he would die.
Hasan admitted to fatally shooting 13 unarmed troops inside a crowded medical building at Fort Hood. Thirty-two other people were injured. He was shot during the attack and now uses a wheelchair.
During his trial, Hasan apologised for “any mistakes” and said he believed he was protecting Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan from the US military. His execution would be the US military’s first since 1961 and its first by firing squad since World War Two.
