FORT HOOD — Prosecutors of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan for the first time on Friday voiced what victims of the 2009 rampage at Fort Hood have long said: that the mass shooting was an Islamic terrorist attack.
Col. Steve Henricks, one of three prosecutors, likened Hasan to a suicide bomber, saying Hasan researched going on jihad before the attack that left 13 dead and 32 wounded.
It was the first time the Army has made that allegation. Prosecutors said they would show that Hasan tried to target soldiers and not civilians, and that he intended to martyr himself at the end of the massacre.
“We believe that just like a suicide bomber, Maj. Hasan had no intention of leaving 5/11 alive,” Henricks said without elaborating.
The Nov. 5, 2009 shooting is often called “5/11” in the Killeen area.
Prosecutors hope to use evidence in the trial, which starts Tuesday, to prove Hasan is guilty of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. The idea is to show that he became increasingly radicalized over time. Hasan, who faces the death penalty and is acting as his own attorney, did not object.
An American born to Palestinian immigrants, Hasan has told the court he was the gunman that day, and that he launched the attack in hopes of preventing U.S. soldiers from killing Taliban insurgents, their leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, and innocent Afghan women and children.
Witnesses at a 2010 evidentiary hearing put Hasan at the scene, with some saying he cried, “God is great!” in Arabic. Critics have said those words, along with evidence showing he'd become religiously radicalized, prove he is a terrorist, but Pentagon leaders have never characterized the attack as such. In one congressional hearing, a government official labeled it an incident of workplace violence.
The trial judge, Col. Tara Osborn, expressed concern about weighing evidence dealing with motive, including the possibility that Hasan targeted soldiers, not civilians. That issue is critical because she has to decide when evidence can be fairly introduced.
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