XPost: alt.private.investigator, alt.sci.sociology, alt.america   
   XPost: alt.education   
   From: thanks.democrats@splcenter.org   
      
   Nidal Hasan sentenced to death for Fort Hood shooting rampage   
      
   By Billy Kenber August 28, 2013   
   Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was sentenced to death Wednesday for   
   killing 13 people and wounding 32 others in a 2009 shooting   
   rampage at Fort Hood, Tex., the worst mass murder at a military   
   installation in U.S. history.   
      
   Dressed in Army fatigues, Hasan, who turns 43 next month,   
   listened impassively as the death sentence was handed down by a   
   panel of 13 senior military officers in a unanimous decision   
   after less than two hours of deliberations. If even a single   
   panel member had objected, Hasan would instead have been   
   sentenced to life in prison. He also was stripped of pay and   
   other financial benefits, which he continued to receive while in   
   custody.   
      
   No active-duty service member has been executed since 1961, and   
   legal experts said it will probably be many years, if ever,   
   before the sentence will be carried out. Hasan will be flown   
   shortly to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he will join five other   
   inmates on military death row, officials said.   
      
   In military cases, there are several mandatory appeal stages and   
   a military death sentence requires final approval by the   
   president, as commander in chief.   
      
   Despite the expected delays, survivors of the shooting welcomed   
   the verdict. According to news reports, Kathy Platoni, an Army   
   reservist, said: “From the bottom of my heart — he doesn’t   
   deserve to live. I don’t know how long it takes for a death   
   sentence to be carried out, but the world will be a better place   
   without him.”   
      
   Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was found guilty this month on   
   13?counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted   
   premeditated murder after opening fire Nov. 5, 2009, at Fort   
   Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center, where troops were   
   getting medical checkups before deploying to Afghanistan.   
      
   Hasan, who was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan a few weeks   
   later, shouted “Allahu ­akbar!” meaning “God is great,” before   
   targeting soldiers with a high-powered, high-capacity handgun he   
   had fitted with laser sights. He was apprehended by military   
   police officers after firing more than 200 shots.   
      
   Prosecutors aggressively pursued the death sentence during the   
   22-day court-martial this month, calling more than 100   
   witnesses, including 20 victims and relatives of the deceased to   
   testify in a courtroom just a few miles from the site of the   
   shooting.   
      
   During two days of evidence ahead of his sentencing, they   
   described, in often emotional testimony, their grief and   
   suffering.   
      
   Staff Sgt. Patrick Zeigler, who was shot four times and had more   
   than 20 percent of his brain removed in surgery, told the court,   
   “I was expected to either die or remain in a vegetative state.”   
   He said that his personality has changed and that he is “a lot   
   angrier, a lot darker than I used to be.”   
      
   The father of a pregnant 21-year-old private from Chicago,   
   Francheska Velez, who was fatally shot as she pleaded for the   
   life of her baby, testified in Spanish that Hasan had “killed me   
   slowly.” Velez was one of three women killed in the shooting.   
      
   The court heard that Hasan had carefully planned his attack,   
   training at a local firing range and researching jihad on his   
   computer. The FBI and Defense Department have drawn criticism   
   for failing to prevent the attack after missing a number of   
   warning signs.   
      
   Hasan, an American-born Muslim, had exchanged e-mails with a   
   leading al-Qaeda figure in which he asked whether those   
   attacking fellow soldiers were martyrs. The e-mails were seen by   
   the FBI. Hasan also once gave a presentation to Army doctors   
   discussing Islam and suicide bombers and said Muslims should be   
   allowed to leave the armed forces as conscientious objectors to   
   avoid “adverse events.”   
      
   The psychiatrist, who acted as his own attorney, tried to plead   
   guilty before the start of the trial but was unable to do so   
   under military rules governing death penalty cases.   
      
   He called no witnesses, offered no testimony and declined to   
   make any statements beyond a brief opening comment in which he   
   took responsibility for the shooting and said he was a soldier   
   who had decided to “switch sides” in what he believed was a U.S.   
   war against Islam.   
      
   As a result, he faced accusations that he deliberately sought   
   the death sentence.   
      
   But in a phone interview Wednesday, his former attorney denied   
   that Hasan, who is paralyzed from the chest down and uses a   
   wheelchair after being shot by military officers, had a death   
   wish.   
      
   John P. Galligan, a civilian lawyer who regularly visits Hasan   
   in jail, said his former client was denied the opportunity to   
   defend himself when the judge barred him from arguing that he   
   had carried out the mass shooting to save the lives of Taliban   
   leaders in Afghanistan.   
      
   Galligan, who continues to provide legal assistance, denounced   
   the proceedings as “almost a ludicrous show trial to secure a   
   death penalty, even though they know it’s unlikely that it would   
   be ever actually implemented.”   
      
   Galligan said the appeals would probably “go on for decades.”   
      
   “In all honesty, he stands a far more likely chance of dying   
   from medical reasons than dying because he’s been sentenced to   
   death,” he said.   
      
   https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nidal-   
   hasan-sentenced-to-death-for-fort-hood-shooting-   
   rampage/2013/08/28/aad28de2-0ffa-11e3-bdf6-   
   e4fc677d94a1_story.html?utm_term=.87b6564be01f   
             
      
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