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Karen Brooks and Jana J. Pruet
Reuters
August 23, 2013
A military jury convicted U.S. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan of all 13 charges of premeditated murder and all 32 charges of attempted premeditated murder on Friday for the November 2009 shooting spree against unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas.
The convictions mean Hasan could face the death penalty by lethal injection, possibly making him the first soldier to be executed by the U.S. military since 1961.
Hasan, seated in a wheelchair as he was paralyzed from the waist down when shot by police to end the rampage, stared directly at the jury while the panel’s president read the verdict. Afterward he looked down, stroking his beard.
The jury of 13 officers deliberated about three hours on Thursday afternoon and another three hours on Friday morning. The same panel will begin hearing the penalty phase of the court-martial on Monday and make a recommendation to the judge, Colonel Tara Osborn, who will determine the sentence.
Hasan, 42, told mental health evaluators he wanted to become a martyr, court documents show. Lawyers assisting Hasan said he was actively seeking the death penalty, though Hasan disputed that claim.
Hasan, an American-born Muslim who acted as his own defense lawyer, admitted in his opening statement to killing 13 people and wounding 31, saying he switched sides in what he considered a U.S. war on Islam. He was also charged with attempted premeditated murder on a 32nd person he shot at and missed. Nearly all of the dead and wounded were fellow soldiers.
Beyond the opening admission, the jury rarely heard from Hasan, who declined to make a closing argument on Thursday and rested his case on Wednesday without calling witnesses and without testifying in his own defense.
In their closing statement, prosecutors stressed that Hasan’s rampage on November 5, 2009, was premeditated.
Prosecutors called 89 witnesses in two weeks of testimony, with many describing in horrific detail the bloodbath in and around a medical building at Fort Hood. It was the worst non-combat attack ever at a U.S. military base.
