US Vice-President JD Vance has cast doubt on the Pentagon’s plans to livestream a firing squad execution of the Fort Hood shooter.
Talking with reporters, Vance expressed doubt that it would happen as planned, saying: “I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen”.
He added, that “if it’s through live stream, I’m not going to be watching it”. Vance described the actions by former US Army major Nidal Hasan as “the worst terrorist attack on American soil outside of 9/11”.
Hasan fatally shot 13 unarmed US soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, injuring another 32. His execution by firing squad would be the first military execution in more than 60 years.
The Pentagon announced earlier this week it would execute Hasan by firing squad, the first of its kind since the end of World War Two. Then on Thursday US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the execution would be livestreamed for the public.
“People need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” said Hegseth.
The BBC has asked the White House whether Trump supported the plans.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Vance said: “I see these announcements. I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen.”
The vice-president said that Hasan was meant to treat soldiers for mental illness and other problems and “took them at their most vulnerable and gunned down these people where they lived”.
The announcement over the livestream plans has been met with criticism from both political parties.
Republican Senator John Curtis pointed to Rome’s history of a “bloody spectacle” corrupting people who watched them, warning that public executions erode civilisations “when it cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment”.
Curtis said that Hegseth’s plan “risks feeding that appetite” and urged him to reconsider.
“The victims deserve justice administered with solemnity. Broadcasting a death diminishes us and is not an effective deterrent,” he said.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told CNN that the idea was “disgusting” and reminiscent of executions carried out by the Islamic State group.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned the decision to publicly livestream Hasan’s execution, expressing “shock and great sorrow” in a statement.
The UN human rights office told AFP that livestreaming it would be “tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture”.
