Nidal Malik Hasan (born September 8, 1970) is an American former United States Army major, physician, and mass murderer convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting on November 5, 2009. Hasan, an Army Medical Corps psychiatrist, admitted to the shootings at his court-martial in August 2013. During the six years Hasan was a medical intern and resident at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, concerns were raised about his job performance and behavior, specifically comments described by colleagues as "anti-American." Hasan was described as socially isolated, stressed by his work with soldiers, and upset about their accounts of warfare. Two days before the shooting, less than a month before he was due to deploy to Afghanistan, Hasan gave away many of his belongings to a neighbor. Prior to the shooting, an investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concluded Hasan's email correspondence with the late Imam Anwar al-Awlaki were related to his authorized professional research and he was not a threat. The FBI, Department of Defense (DoD), and United States Senate all conducted investigations after the shootings. The Senate released a report describing the shooting as "the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001". Controversially, the Army decided not to charge Hasan with terrorism. A jury panel of 13 officers convicted him of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, and unanimously recommended he be dismissed from the service and sentenced to death. Hasan is incarcerated at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, awaiting execution.
Early life Nidal Hasan was born on September 8, 1970, at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington County, Virginia. His parents were naturalized American citizens of Palestinian origin; they had immigrated years earlier from al-Bireh, a city in the West Bank near Jerusalem. Raised in the Muslim faith with his two younger brothers, Hasan attended Wakefield High School in Arlington for his freshman year in 1985. His family moved to Roanoke in 1986, where his father had moved a year before to set up what would become a number of successful family-owned businesses which included a market, restaurant and olive bar. Hasan graduated from Roanoke's William Fleming High School in 1988. His father died in 1998 at the age of 51; his mother died three years later at the age of 49. One of his brothers continues to live in Virginia while the other moved to the Palestinian territories.
Military service, higher education and medical career Hasan enlisted in the United States Army in 1988 after graduating from high school. He attended college during this time, earning an associate degree in science from Virginia Western Community College in 1992. In 1995, he graduated from Virginia Tech with a bachelor's degree in biochemistry. He completed both of these programs with Latin honors. He was commissioned as an officer in the Army Medical Department in 1997, and enrolled at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland. Hasan's performance was marginal while enrolled at USUHS. He was on academic probation during much of the six years he required to complete the four-year curriculum and graduate medical school. Upon graduation in 2003, Hasan completed his internship and residency in psychiatry at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC). He completed his psychiatry training with a two-year fellowship in disaster and preventive psychiatry, earning a master's degree in public health. During his training at Walter Reed, he received counseling and extra supervision.
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