Convicted Fort Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Hasan was sentenced to death by lethal injection in an unanimous decision of 13 jurors at the Texas Army base on Wednesday afternoon.
The jury also stripped Hasan of his pay and dismissed him from the service. As NBC 5 DFW Investigates first reported, since his 2009 arrest, Hasan has received $300,000 in pay. According to Fort Hood officials, any forfeiture of pay and allowances included in a sentence of a court-martial does not take effect until 14 days after the sentence is adjudged.
Deliberation began about 11 a.m. after Hasan declined to make any closing statement in the sentencing phase of his trial. The jury returned at about 2 p.m. and sentenced him to death.
Hasan had no visible reaction when the sentence was read.
The same jury convicted Hasan last Friday on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder for the 2009 mass shooting.
Hasan will now be flown on the first available flight to the maximum security U.S. military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he will be placed on death row while awaiting lengthy, automatic appeals.
Legal experts said appeals will likely last for years, delaying Hasan's execution by lethal injection.
Before Hasan’s turn came to speak Wednesday morning, prosecutor Col. Mike Mulligan spent around 45 minutes recalling for the jury the testimony of victim's families and other evidence of the crime presented during the prior 16 days of trial.
“We ask you now, with your sentence, to make him accountable,” Mulligan said. “Today will be his day of reckoning.”
Anticipating what Hasan could say in a closing statement, Mulligan refuted what Hasan has said before in documents released to the media about religious motives for the crime.
“He is not giving his life. We are taking his life. It is not his gift to God. It is his death,” Mulligan said.
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Hasan mentioned religious motives in a brief opening statement at the beginning of the trial.
He told an Army sanity review board in 2010 that he would be a “martyr” if he is executed for the crime which he considered part of a holy war to stop soldiers from fighting in Afghanistan.
“He will not now and he never will be a martyr. He is a criminal. He is a cold-blooded murder,” Mulligan said.
Representing himself in the trial, Hasan rarely raised any objections and presented no defense evidence.
The judge repeatedly asked if he wanted to have lawyers but he declined.
Stand-by attorneys again Tuesday attempted to intercede on Hasan’s behalf but the judge told them Hasan is the “captain of his own ship.”
The stand-by lawyers have said before they believe Hasan is helping prosecutors win the death sentence they are seeking.
Hasan was forbidden from pleading guilty in the death penalty case under military law.
Follow the story from Fort Hood via @KenKalthoffNBC5 who is tweeting from the Army base.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article said that Maj. Nidal Hasan would be stripped of his rank. According to Fort Hood officials, that is an error.!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");
