Update on Hasan

[CJ]

Nothing would please me more than a sniper hitting him in the neck from 1/2 mile away as he rolls out of court in his wheelchair, rendering him a quadriplegic from the jaw down.

I laughed.

[Forever_frost]

US Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, charged with killing 13 people and wounding another 32 at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, will soon face a military court-martial that is both controversial and long in coming.

Judge Tara Osborn, a US Army colonel, ruled Wednesday that the trial would go ahead at Fort Hood – the site of what a US Senate report termed "the worst terrorist attack on US soil since Sept. 11, 2001" – rather than be moved to another venue as Major Hasan’s lawyers had wanted.

The Army has said the officers who will make up Hasan's jury will be brought in from another post, probably Fort Sill in Oklahoma, Reuters reports.

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Hasan's counsel had said the change in venue and jury pool were a question of fairness, given the saturation coverage about the shootings in the Army Times newspaper, compared with newspapers for the other branches of the armed forces.

Jeffrey Addicott, a retired Army Special Forces judge advocate general, told Reuters before Wednesday’s hearing, "This is such a high profile case that you can't go to any military installation in the world and find a panel which has not heard about this case."

Colonel Osborn also rejected Hasan's request to select jurors from the Navy or Air Force instead of the Army.

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The case and the upcoming trial raise questions about how Hasan was charged following the murderous rampage at Fort Hood, which was stopped when two military police officers shot him (resulting in his being paralyzed from the waist down).

Hasan was born in the United States and is therefore a US citizen as well as a commissioned military officer. But he had had e-mail contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born imam listed as an Al Qaeda terrorist and later killed in a US drone strike in Yemen. During the violent 10-minute episode at Fort Hood, Hasan was heard to shout “God is great” in Arabic.

The Defense Department classified the attack as “workplace violence” rather than an act of terrorism.

Critics say this diminishes the case, at least in terms of how it’s perceived.

“Fourteen people, including an unborn child, were killed by Major Nidal Hasan, a man that was known to have terrorist ties,” US Rep. John Carter (R) of Texas said in a statement e-mailed to the Killeen [Texas] Daily Herald. “This was a terrorist attack and it’s time to step up to the plate and give these forgotten warriors the respect and attention they deserve.”

Other military legal authorities say it makes no difference how the case is characterized since the charges against Hasan could result in the death penalty anyway.

But critics of the “workplace violence” designation say this prevents the Army from awarding Purple Heart medals to those killed or wounded in the attack.

Some of them are suing the military because they claim the designation gives them diminished access to medical care and financial benefits normally available to those whose wounds are designated as "combat related,” Fox News reported.

In a statement to Fox News, Pentagon spokesman George Little denied that any military victims of Hasan’s attack have been neglected in the wake of the shooting spree.

"The Department of Defense is committed to the highest care of those in our military family," Mr. Little said. "Survivors of the incident at Fort Hood are eligible for the same medical benefits as all service members. The Department of Defense is also committed to the integrity of the ongoing court-martial proceedings of Maj. Nidal Hassan and for that reason will not at this time further characterize the incident."

Former 1st Cavalry Staff Judge Advocate Richard Rosen told the Killeen newspaper this week that labeling Hasan as a terrorist would likely have little impact on the upcoming trial.

“This guy was taking direction from Anwar al-Awlaki, whom we thought was enough of a threat to kill with drones,” said Mr. Rosen, currently a law professor at Texas Tech University. “Ultimately when you talk about the baseline of the crimes he has been alleged to have committed, [it would have] no impact at all.”

Osborn, the judge in the case, has denied a request by Hasan's lawyers that the death penalty be removed from consideration in return for a guilty plea.

The judge is unlikely to accept any defense requests that would delay the court-martial, Geoffrey Corn, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Judge Advocate Corps and now a professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, told Reuters.

"I think she is sensitive to the fact that this has dragged on for a long time, and it's time to get this case to trial," Mr. Corn said.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin in May.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/0321/Fort-Hood-shooting-After-delays-trial-of-Major-Hasan-to-begin-soon

[KBScobravert]

Should be only one question.
Q: "did you do it?" (yes or no)
A: "yes" (straight to the hangman's noose)
or if
A: "no"...

Q: then how the fuck did you end up in this situation?

[DallasSleeper]

Time to make Frost lose his mind.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/21...ince-massacre/

Report: Fort Hood shooter has drawn $278G in salary since massacre

The Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others during a shooting at Fort Hood has reportedly been paid more than $278,000 since the 2009 incident.

U.S. Department of Defense officials confirmed to NBCDFW.com that Maj. Nidal Hasan’s salary cannot be suspended unless he is proven guilty in the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting in Texas, citing the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Jury selection in his trial is scheduled to begin May 30.

[ceyko]

It should make all of us lose our minds. This is just 1 example of waste.

[Forever_frost]

He's not spending it, so fine. Kill his ass, confiscate the money and pay it to the families of those who were effected.

[ceyko]

He's not spending it, so fine. Kill his ass, confiscate the money and pay it to the families of those who were effected.

Yeah

[YALE]

Well, there's a crime compensation law and program in Texas. I bet I know where that accrued salary is going.

[CJ]

He's not spending it, so fine. Kill his ass, confiscate the money and pay for additional government programs

fixed for reality.

[DallasSleeper]

He's not spending it, so fine. Kill his ass, confiscate the money and pay it to the families of those who were effected.

Unless he has allotments set up. I saw very little of my pay when I was in due to all of my allotments.

[Forever_frost]

FORT HOOD, Texas -- An Army psychiatrist charged with gunning down Fort Hood soldiers said Tuesday his defense would show that he was compelled to do so because deploying U.S. troops posed an imminent danger to Taliban fighters.
The military judge asked Maj. Nidal Hasan if he has evidence to support his "defense of others" strategy, hinting that it could be thrown out.

Such a defense requires Hasan to prove the 2009 killings were necessary to protect others from immediate harm or death, and military law experts not involved in the case said the judge is unlikely to allow him to present that defense.

"A `defense of others' strategy is not going to work when you're at war and the `others' are enemies of the U.S.," said Jeff Addicott, director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University in San Antonio. "And what makes it more egregious is that he targeted medical personnel whose primary purpose was to heal, not to kill."

While Hasan's argument may have been a bit more sympathetic if he said the rampage was necessary to protect Muslim women and children, that defense strategy does not apply in a war situation, said Lisa M. Windsor, a retired Army colonel and former judge advocate. Still, it's unclear what Hasan may present because attorneys are not allowed to give evidence themselves, said Windsor, an attorney specializing in military law.

The court-martial had been scheduled to start with jury selection Wednesday, two days after Hasan was granted his request to represent himself. Hasan, an American-born Muslim, then requested a three-month delay to give him more time to prepare his defense.

The military judge, Col. Tara Osborn, was to rule Wednesday on Hasan's trial delay request after hearing more about his defense. Osborn said jury selection would now start no earlier than Monday.

Hasan, 42, faces the death penalty or life without parole if convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the 2009 attack at the Army post in Texas.

At a hearing Tuesday, Osborn asked what evidence Hasan had to support his defense. Hasan said Taliban leader Mullah Omar and "leadership of the Taliban in general" were in immediate danger from American troops on the Texas Army post, because "the U.S. has attacked and continued to attack the Taliban."
Osborn quickly interrupted Hasan, a day after telling him that he could not make speeches or try to testify when questioning witnesses.

Retired Staff Sgt. Shawn Manning, shot six times that day, said five of the 13 killed at Fort Hood were in two units that had been training to help soldiers deal with stress and mental health issues. Deployed soldiers in those units are allowed to fire their weapons only in self-defense, Manning said. Hasan was to deploy to Afghanistan with one of those units.

But not everyone killed was about to deploy -- to Afghanistan or anywhere else. Pvt. Francheska Velez, who was pregnant, had just returned from Iraq. Michael Grant Cahill, who tried to stop the gunman with a chair, was a physician assistant working in the building.

"It makes me sick to my stomach" that Hasan would use such a defense strategy, Manning said.

Witnesses have said that after lunch on Nov. 5, 2009, a gunman wearing an Army combat uniform shouted "Allahu Akbar!" -- "God is great!" in Arabic -- and opened fire in a crowded medical building where deploying soldiers get vaccines and tests. Witnesses said the gunman fired rapidly, pausing only to reload, even shooting at some soldiers as they hid under desks and fled the building.

Government documents show that in the years before the shooting, Hasan told some colleagues that the U.S. was at war with Islam. In some emails to a radical Muslim cleric, Hasan indicated that he supported terrorists and was intrigued with the idea of U.S. soldiers killing comrades in the name of Islam.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/06/05/hasan-says-he-was-protecting-the-taliban.html?ESRC=army-a.nl

[ceyko]

Wow, maybe he is crazy. Still should hang, don't get me wrong - but IMHO he is not putting up a very good case (if there is such a thing as a "good case".)

[Moose242]

I would say just shoot him in the head and throw him in a shallow grave, but that would be too nice.

Saw his limbs off with a p90 SMG (he was fond of that 5.7x28mm), cauterize the wounds so he lives, and then throw him in the desert face up.

[ELVIS]

im pretty dumb, but if he is claiming he did it to defend others besides the ones he swore to can he be tried for treason and killed?

god bless.

[YALE]

Wagon wheel that motherfucker!