FILE – This April 9, 2010 file photo released by the Bell County Sheriffs Department, shows U.S. Maj. Nidal Hasan at the San Antonio to Bell County Jail in Belton, Texas, after the Nov. 5 shooting spree at Fort Hood. The Army psychiatrist charged in the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting said in a statement to Fox News that the U.S. government is at war with Islam. It’s the first statement Maj. Nidal Hasan has put out to the U.S. media. In the past, he has spoken via telephone with Al-Jazeera, the transcript of which is evidence in his upcoming trial. “My complicity was on behalf of a government that openly acknowledges that it would hate for the law of Almighty Allah to be the supreme law of the land,” Hasan said in the lengthy statement released to Fox News on Saturday. He then says in reference to a war on Islam, “I participated in it.” (AP Photo/Bell County Sheriffs Department, File)
FILE – This April 9, 2010 file photo released by the Bell County Sheriffs Department, shows U.S. Maj. Nidal Hasan at the San Antonio to Bell County Jail in Belton, Texas, after the Nov. 5 shooting spree at Fort Hood. The Army psychiatrist charged in the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting said in a statement to Fox News that the U.S. government is at war with Islam. It’s the first statement Maj. Nidal Hasan has put out to the U.S. media. In the past, he has spoken via telephone with Al-Jazeera, the transcript of which is evidence in his upcoming trial. “My complicity was on behalf of a government that openly acknowledges that it would hate for the law of Almighty Allah to be the supreme law of the land,” Hasan said in the lengthy statement released to Fox News on Saturday. He then says in reference to a war on Islam, “I participated in it.” (AP Photo/Bell County Sheriffs Department, File)
FILE – This file combination image shows handout photos of the victims killed during the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. From top left, Michael Grant Cahill, 62, of Cameron, Texas; Maj. Libardo Eduardo Caraveo, 52, of Woodbridge, Va.; Staff Sgt. Justin M. DeCrow, 32, of Evans, Ga.; Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, of San Diego, Calif.; Spc. Frederick Greene, 29, of Mountain City, Tenn.; Spc. Jason Dean Hunt, 22, of Frederick, Okla., Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, of Kiel, Wis.; Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka, 19, of West Jordan, Utah; Pfc. Michael Pearson, 22, of Bolingbrook, Ill.; Capt. Russell Seager, 51, of Racine, Wis.; Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, of Chicago; Lt. Col. Juanita Warman, 55, of Havre de Grace, Md.; and Pfc. Kham Xiong, 23, of St. Paul, Minn. A trial for Nidal Hasan, who is charged in the shooting rampage that left 13 dead and more than 30 others wounded, starts Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2013. (AP Photo, File)
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FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — After years of delays, the trial of the man who carried out the Fort Hood shooting seems likely to unfold as a faceoff between the gunman and his victims.
Starting Tuesday, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan will represent himself at a court-martial charging him with murder and attempted murder for the 2009 attack that left 13 people dead. Over the next several weeks, he is expected to deliver an opening statement, to question witnesses and possibly present his own evidence.
On the witness stand will be many of the more than 30 people who were wounded, plus dozens of others who were inside the post’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center, where service members went to prepare for deployment. They saw Hasan shout “Allahu Akbar!” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and open fire on unarmed fellow soldiers.
Hasan has never denied carrying out the attack, and the facts of the case are mostly settled. But questions abound about how the trial will play out. How will Hasan question his victims? How will victims respond? How will his health hold up?
The defendant, who was shot in the back by officers responding to the attack, is now paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair. He requires 15- to 20-minute stretching breaks about every four hours, and has to lift himself off his wheelchair for about a minute every half hour to avoid developing sores.
Staff Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, who was wounded, is expected to testify. He said he looked forward to seeing Hasan, in a way.
“I’m not going to dread anything. That’s a sign of fear,” Lunsford said. “That man strikes no fear in my heart. He strikes no fear in my family. What he did to me was bad. But the biggest mistake that he made was I survived. So he will see me again.”
But Staff Sgt. Shawn Manning said he dreaded the expected confrontation.
“I have to keep my composure and not go after the guy,” said Manning, a mental health specialist who was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan with Hasan. “I’m not afraid of him, obviously. He’s a paralyzed guy in a wheelchair, but it’s sickening that he’s still living and breathing.”
The trial is expected to last at least a month, but Col. Tara Osborn, the judge overseeing it, told jurors Monday to prepare for several months.
Hasan’s defense strategy remains unclear. John Galligan, Hasan’s former lead attorney, said Monday that he still keeps in touch with Hasan but wasn’t sure what he would say Tuesday morning, if anything.
Hasan has indicated recently that he still wants his views to be heard. He has released statements to media outlets about his views on the Islamic legal code known as sharia and how it conflicts with American democracy.
If he is convicted and sentenced to death, it will most likely be decades before he makes it to the death chamber, if at all.
The military has not executed an active-duty soldier since 1961. Five men are on the military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., but none is close to an execution date.
Authorities in the military justice system have also struggled to avoid reversed sentences on appeal. Eleven of the 16 death sentences handed down by military juries in the last 30 years have been overturned, according to an academic study and court records.
That’s one reason why prosecutors and the military judge have been careful leading up to trial, said Geoffrey Corn, a professor at the South Texas College of Law and former military lawyer.
“The public looks and says, ‘This is an obviously guilty defendant. What’s so hard about this?’” Corn said. “What seems so simple is in fact relatively complicated.”
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AP National Writer Allen G. Breed and Associated Press writer Ramit Plushnick-Masti contributed to this report.
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Follow Nomaan Merchant on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/nomaanmerchant .
Fort Hood trial brings together attacker, victims
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