Fort Hood Terrorist Charged With Premeditated Murder
Hasan Charged With 13 Counts of Premeditated Murder in Fort Hood Massacre
FOX News
Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan was charged Thursday with 13 counts of premeditated murder in last week’s Fort Hood mass shootings.
The Army Criminal Investigation Command formally announced the charges against Hasan at Fort Hood Wednesday afternoon.
“We are aggressively following every possible lead,” said Chris Grey with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, adding that additional charges are possible.
Hasan will be tried in the military’s court-martial system. Prosecutors will likely seek the death penalty, the maximum sentence he faces. The minimum is life in prison.
Executions of military defendants are very rare.
Officials told The Associated Press before the news conference that it had not been decided whether to charge Hasan with a 14th count of murder related to the death of the unborn child of a pregnant shooting victim. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the case publicly.
John Galligan, Hasan’s civilian attorney, said his military co-counsel told him that charges were being read to Hasan in the hospital without his lawyers present.
“I don’t like it. I feel like I’m being left out of the loop,” Galligan said. “I guess it’s 13 charges, but I don’t like to have to guess in this situation.”
The American-born military psychiatrist survived the rampage and is being guarded at a hospital in San Antonio. He has been talking to investigators.
Hasan is accused of firing about 100 rounds at unsuspecting fellow soldiers filling out deployment paperwork before civilian police officers shot him and stopped the attack.
The massacre killed 13 people and left about 30 others wounded. It has been classified as the worst mass shooting on an American military base.
Hasan Charged With 13 Counts of Murder in Ft. Hood Attack
New York Times
Military prosecutors have charged Maj. Nadil Malik Hasan with 13 counts of premeditated murder in last week’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Tex., a spokesman for the Army criminal investigation division said Thursday.
Major Hasan, 39, an Army psychiatrist, is accused of opening fire with two handguns in a Soldier Medical Readiness Center, where troops receive medical attention before being deployed or after returning from overseas.
Of the 13 people who were killed, , four were officers, 8 were enlisted soldiers and one was a civilian. Major Hasan was eventually subdued by civilian police.
The 13 charges against Major Hasan are “initial charges,” said the Army spokesman, Chris Grey, “and additional charges may be preferred in the future, subject to the ongoing criminal investigation.”
“It is important to remember that the preferral of charges is the first step in the court-martial process,” Mr. Grey said, “and that a charge is merely an accusation. The accused is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.”
Col. John P. Galligan, a retired Army officer, who is representing Major Hasan, has questioned whether the suspect will be able to get a fair trial at Fort Hood. ~ ~~~ what the heck??? this General must be a PC freak or something??? ~ Wild Thing
For now, Mr. Grey added, “Major Hasan is currently under pretrial restriction while receiving medical care.”
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Wild Thing’s comment……..
Army Press Conference: Nidal Malik Hasan Charged With 13 Counts Of Murder
But not an act of terror and war???? Murder is a civil crime…War and Terror of the 9/11 type.
An enemy combatant in a US military uniform….just shoot him and be done with it.
I know this guy was having a hard time finding a wife, a virgin with which to spend his nights and had taken to seeking them out in the strip clubs of Texas. Was his last desperate effort to find the elusive virgin the Koran and a gun and a go for broke grab for 72 virgins. Now all he has is all those murder counts and a hot pitchfork in hell waitng for his murdering ass.
Yeah, WT…shoot his @$$…very slowly.
Last time we had a military exeution it was over fifty years ago… do we still have hanging or firing squad? I sure hope so.
Can’t WAIT for the Muzzies and the general public to see how much the UCMJ does NOT favor the defendant as in the civilian criminal courts.
That alone should have the liberals spinning around on their eyebrows.
And anonymous, I’m pretty sure the military can figure out an execution method for this guy, and lethal injection does not figure into it anywhere. But I don’t see an execution happening in less than ten years.
That is good too, a firing squad would do
just fine.
I don’t think the death penalty should always be used, but I agree with it in the recent execution of the DC sniper, and I definitely agree with it here. Hopefully the publicness of this case and the atrocities he committed will assure that he in fact does receive it.
The private was pregnant so an additional charge may still follow – the murder of her unborn. Mr. Attorney, we are in a global post 9-11 war on terror after JIHAD was declared on US by Osama bin Laden in February, 1998. Hassan yelled “Allah Ackbar” and slaughtered 13 U.S, military troops on a US military installation. This is an act of cold blooded murder times 13 and an act of TREASON – period – and a firing squad deal all the way.