Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist charged in a mass shooting, is seen in a courtroom sketch on the opening day of his trial at the US Army post in Fort Hood, Texas, yesterday.
Reuters/Fort Hood, Texas
Accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan said yesterday that war is an ugly thing with death and devastation on both sides, in a brief opening statement at his long-awaited trial for opening fire at a Texas base in 2009 and killing 13 US soldiers.
Hasan, who was paralysed from the chest down and is confined to a wheelchair after being shot by Fort Hood base police who ended his rampage, is representing himself at the court-martial.
“Witnesses will testify that war is an ugly thing. Death, destruction and devastation are felt from both sides, from friend and foe. Evidence from this trial will only show one side. I was on the wrong side but I switched sides,” Hasan, an American-born Muslim, said in a roughly two minute-long opening statement.
Hasan, 42, who carried out the shooting on Nov. 5, 2009, just days before he was to be deployed to Afghanistan, has said he shot the soldiers to try to stop what he has called a US war on Islam. He killed 13 soldiers and wounded 32 others.
Prosecutors took about an hour to lay out their case against Hasan, saying that he intended to kill indiscriminately.
“Evidence will show that Hasan didn’t want to deploy and he possessed a jihad duty to kill as many soldiers as possible,” military prosecutor Colonel Steve Henricks said.
Hasan could be sentenced to death if convicted.
Hasan spoke very little during the opening statements and during testimony of the first witnesses at the trial on the sprawling military base between Dallas and Austin, Texas.
The first three witnesses were from a gun store near the base, where Hasan bought the pistol used in the shooting. The manager of “Gun’s Galore” store, David Cheadle, said he showed Hasan how to assemble the pistol while Hasan recorded him on video.
Frederick Brannen, a former sales clerk at the store, testified that he sold Hasan the gun.
When the weapon was presented as evidence, Hasan said: “Your honour, that is my weapon.”
Hasan was shot by base police. The soldiers were not armed because policy does not allow them to carry arms on base.
An Army psychiatrist at Fort Hood at the time of the shooting, Hasan has since apologised for being in the US military and helping the US response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. He has tried to renounce his US citizenship.
Hasan has said he plans to call only two witnesses at trial, according to Fort Hood officials. The witnesses were not identified.
Hasan may cross-examine any witness, including survivors of the attack.
He faces 13 charges of premeditated murder and 32 charges of attempted premeditated murder. The dead included 12 active duty soldiers and a retired chief warrant officer who worked as a civilian employee at the base.
