Nidal Hasan Biography 2026: Fort Hood Shooter, 45-Count Conviction & December 3 Execution

Nidal Malik Hasan is a former U.S. Army major and military psychiatrist serving on death row for the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, in which he killed 13 people and wounded 32 others. In October 2026, President Donald Trump approved his execution by firing squad, and the acting Secretary of the Army scheduled it for December 3, 2026, at 1 p.m. CST at Fort Hood – which, if carried out, would make him the first U.S. service member executed since 1961 and the first person publicly executed in the United States since 1937.

This biography covers Hasan’s early life, military and medical career, the attack and his 45-count conviction, and the 2026 developments that have made him a worldwide headline once again.

Quick Facts

The figures most closely associated with Hasan’s story include the Army police officers who stopped him, Kimberly Munley and Mark Todd; the officials who approved his execution, President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; the radical cleric he emailed, Anwar al-Awlaki; and the victims remembered at Fort Hood’s memorial.

Early Life & Education

Nidal Malik Hasan was born on September 8, 1970, at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington County, Virginia, the eldest of three sons born to naturalized American citizens of Palestinian origin who had immigrated from al-Bireh, a city in the West Bank near Jerusalem. The family was Muslim, and Hasan and his two younger brothers were raised in the faith.

Hasan attended Wakefield High School in Arlington as a freshman in 1985; the family relocated to Vinton, near Roanoke, in 1986, where his father established a string of family businesses including a market, restaurant and bar. Hasan graduated from William Fleming High School in Roanoke in 1988. His parents both died young: his father in 1998 at 51, and his mother three years later at 49 – losses relatives later said deepened his religiosity.

Hasan enlisted in the U.S. Army right after high school in 1988 and studied while serving, earning an associate degree from Virginia Western Community College (1992) and a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Virginia Tech in 1995, both with Latin honors. He was commissioned as an officer in the Army Medical Department in 1997 and entered the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, where he took six years to complete the four-year medical curriculum – much of it on academic probation – before graduating in 2003 with an M.D. and later a Master of Public Health. He completed his psychiatry internship and residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, followed by a fellowship in disaster and preventive psychiatry.

Career Journey and Recent Activity in 2026

Hasan’s professional career was entirely military: two decades of service that ended with the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military base – and, in 2026, with the scheduling of his execution.

Army Psychiatrist (1988-2009)

Hasan served 21 years, rising to major on May 17, 2009, amid chronic shortages of majors in the medical corps. As a psychiatrist he treated soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, and colleagues later said the accounts he heard affected him deeply. Warning signs accumulated: during his residency he presented a paper titled “The Quranic World View as It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military,” suggesting the Defense Department “should allow Muslims Soldiers the option of being released as ‘Conscientious objectors,’” and he received poor performance evaluations and extra supervision. Retired Colonel Terry Lee recalled Hasan making “outlandish” statements opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In July 2009 Hasan was transferred to Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, Texas; two weeks later he legally bought an FN Five-seven pistol and later more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition. He was due to deploy to Afghanistan on November 28, 2009.

The 2009 Attack, Trial and Sentencing

On November 5, 2009, at about 1:34 p.m., Hasan entered the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood near Killeen, Texas, shouted “Allahu Akbar!” and opened fire for roughly ten minutes, killing 13 people – 12 soldiers and one civilian, including 21-year-old Private First Class Francheska Velez, who was three months pregnant – and wounding 32 others. Department of the Army police Sgt. Kimberly Munley exchanged fire with him and was badly wounded; Sgt. Mark Todd then shot Hasan several times, kicked his pistol away and handcuffed him. Two would-be heroes died trying to stop him: Captain John Gaffaney, who charged him, and civilian physician assistant Michael Cahill, who came at him with a chair. Hasan was left paraplegic from spinal wounds and has used a wheelchair ever since.

Charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder – 45 counts total – he was arraigned in 2011, dismissed from the service, and tried by court-martial in 2013. Representing himself, he admitted the shootings, telling the panel of 13 officers he had acted to stop soldiers from deploying to Afghanistan to kill Muslims. He was found guilty on all counts on August 6, 2013, and the jury unanimously recommended death after less than two hours of deliberation. He has been on death row at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas ever since – the first American service member sentenced to death for a military crime since 1961.

2026: Execution Approved and Scheduled

After his appeals were exhausted – the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his case in March 2025 – Hasan’s long-stalled sentence moved forward. In early October 2026, President Trump approved his execution by firing squad, and acting Secretary of the Army Adam Telle set the date: December 3, 2026, at 1 p.m. CST at Fort Hood. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth then announced the execution would be livestreamed for public viewing, sparking widespread backlash from legal experts, media outlets and the public. If carried out as scheduled, the execution will be a series of firsts: the first U.S. service member executed since Pvt. John A. Bennett was hanged in 1961, the first executed by firing squad since Eddie Slovik in 1945, and the first person executed publicly in the U.S. since Roscoe Jackson in 1937.

Career Stats

• Military service: U.S. Army, 1988–2009 (rose to major; dismissed after conviction)
• Education: Virginia Tech (BA, biochemistry), Uniformed Services University (MD, MPH), Walter Reed psychiatry residency
• Criminal counts: 45 (13 premeditated murder + 32 attempted premeditated murder)
• Sentence: Death by firing squad – execution scheduled December 3, 2026
• Casualties of the attack: 13 killed, 32 wounded

Personal Life

Hasan’s personal life was spare and increasingly isolated in the years before the attack.

Family and Private Life

Military records describe Hasan as unmarried. A former neighbor claimed in 1997 that Hasan was living with two sons and appeared to be a single father, but that account was never confirmed and remains disputed. His parents’ deaths in 1998 and 2001, his cousin Nader Hasan said, were turning points; relatives described him as quiet, gentle and once so sensitive he mourned a pet bird for months. He prayed regularly at a mosque in Silver Spring, Maryland, where the former imam, Faizul Khan, described him as “a reserved guy with a nice personality” who “never brought up politics.” Cousin Nader Hasan, a Virginia attorney, later said Nidal dreaded deployment after years of counseling traumatized soldiers and had hired a military attorney trying to resolve his exit from the service.

Dating History and Relationships

No spouse or romantic partner has ever been publicly documented. The imam who knew him for a decade said Hasan often spoke of wanting to marry, but he never did – by all official accounts he was single at the time of the attack and has remained so through more than a decade of pretrial proceedings and imprisonment.

Controversies

Hasan’s case is one of the most controversy-laden in modern American military justice.

The central debate is why the warning signs were missed. The FBI intercepted email exchanges between Hasan and the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki beginning December 17, 2008 – in which Hasan introduced himself with, “Do you remember me? I used to pray with you at the Virginia mosque” – but investigators concluded they were consistent with authorized research. His inflammatory residency presentation, his colleagues’ reports of “anti-American” comments, and his own business card bearing the initials “SoA (SWT),” interpreted by investigators as “Soldier of Allah,” all went unaddressed. The U.S. Senate later called the attack “the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001,” yet controversy followed the government’s handling of it: the Army declined to charge Hasan with terrorism, and survivors and victims’ families sued in November 2011 to force a terrorism classification and pursue negligence claims. In February 2015 Congress authorized Purple Hearts for the Fort Hood victims, reversing years of the attack being officially designated “workplace violence.”

The latest controversy surrounds his 2026 execution: the announcement that it will be livestreamed drew sharp criticism as a spectacle at odds with modern execution practice. Hasan himself has said he hoped to die, telling the court at sentencing that he would rather face execution than spend life in prison – a stance that has troubled victims’ advocates who wanted him to serve life.

Awards & Achievements (All Revoked)

Hasan’s military decorations – the Army Service Ribbon, two National Defense Service Medals, and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal – were rendered hollow by his conviction: in 2013 he was formally dismissed from the Army and stripped of his rank of major. What remains of his record is academic and professional: an M.D. from the Uniformed Services University, an MPH, Latin-honors degrees, and board certification as a psychiatrist – credentials that made his crime, committed in uniform against his own patients’ peers, all the more shocking. For the record of the day itself, investigators documented 146 spent shell casings inside the building and 68 outside, with Hasan carrying 177 unfired rounds when captured.

Physical Statistics

Exact height and weight statistics for Nidal Hasan are not officially published. He has been a wheelchair user since November 2009, when bullets struck his spine and left him paralyzed from the waist down – injuries sustained as he was stopped by police Sgt. Mark Todd. Photographs from his 2013 court-martial show a middle-aged man with dark hair and a beard, appearing in uniform or in civilian clothes while seated. His current physical condition has been a recurring subject of legal filings, as defense attorneys argued for years that he was able to understand the proceedings against him.

Quotes

• “[The Defense Department] should allow Muslims Soldiers the option of being released as ‘Conscientious objectors’ to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events.” – from his residency presentation, The Quranic World View as It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military
• “Do you remember me? I used to pray with you at the Virginia mosque.” – his first email to Anwar al-Awlaki, December 17, 2008 (as recounted by al-Awlaki)
• At his 2013 court-martial he declared he was the shooter and said he had acted to stop U.S. soldiers from deploying to Afghanistan to kill Muslims. – as reported by CNN and The New York Times

Favorites

Unlike most biographical subjects, Hasan never publicly discussed personal favorites – no interviews, no profiles of his hobbies. Investigators’ records note his business card advertised psychiatric services and his library and computer contained material on Islamic jurisprudence, but his reading, music or entertainment preferences were never documented and are not invented here.

Earnings and Net Worth in 2026

Nidal Hasan’s net worth is not publicly documented, and no credible estimate exists. He earned an Army officer’s salary until his dismissal in 2013; since then he has been a prisoner at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks with no income or assets of public record. Any figure circulated online would be speculation. What is documented is the cost of his case: his court-martial was one of the most expensive in U.S. military history, running to tens of millions of dollars across the investigation, trial and years of appeals.

Interesting Facts

• He bought his FN Five-seven pistol just two weeks after arriving at Fort Hood, after asking for “the most technologically advanced weapon” with the largest magazine.
• He gave away his furniture and copies of the Quran on the morning of the attack.
• Police found 177 unfired rounds still in his pockets when he was captured.
• He survived a coma and was left paralyzed from the waist down – he has used a wheelchair since 2009.
• A jury of 13 officers needed less than two hours to convict him and sentence him to death in 2013.
• If executed on December 3, 2026, he would be the first U.S. service member executed since 1961.
• His execution would be the first publicly livestreamed in modern U.S. history.

Did You Know Already?

• Did you know Hasan killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009?
• Did you know he was convicted on 45 counts and sentenced to death in 2013?
• Did you know he was a psychiatrist treating soldiers with PTSD?
• Did you know his execution is scheduled for December 3, 2026, at Fort Hood?
• Did you know police officers Kimberly Munley and Mark Todd stopped him within minutes?
• Did you know the attack has been called the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 by the U.S. Senate?

Social Media Links

Hasan has no public social media presence; all accounts associated with the case were investigated during the trial, and communications from death row are restricted by the prison.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Nidal Hasan’s biography is a cautionary record of missed signals: a decorated Army psychiatrist whose radicalization unfolded in plain sight before he murdered 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. With his execution now scheduled for December 3, 2026, his name is again in the headlines – this time as a test of how the United States carries out its rarest and most controversial punishment. If you found this biography helpful, please share it with others and explore more celebrity and public-figure biographies on our site.