The public will be able to watch the execution of a former US Army major by firing squad, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said.

An official from the Defense Department told the BBC the execution of Nidal Hasan, who fatally shot 13 unarmed US soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, would be livestreamed.

The Pentagon had announced earlier this week that it would execute Hasan in the first military execution in more than 60 years.

“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” Hegseth said on Thursday. “Because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”

Hegseth said in an interview with conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice that Hasan is “gonna get a firing squad of soldiers. As it should be”.

The BBC has contacted the White House for comment on whether President Donald Trump supports a livestreamed public execution.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell had said on Monday that the defence secretary had made the recommendation and Trump approved it.

The execution is scheduled to take place at Fort Hood in Texas on 3 December, the secretary of the US Army said on Tuesday. It will be the first military execution by firing squad since the end of World War Two.

Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist from Virginia, admitted in court that he was the gunman and apologised for “any mistakes”. He said during his court-martial in 2013 that he believed he was protecting Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The killings on 5 November 2009 were the deadliest ever non-combat attack on an American military base.

The shooting took place in a crowded medical building where deploying soldiers were awaiting check-ups and vaccines.

A military execution requires approval from the US president, according to military law.

It also requires appellate review and a final judgment on its legality to move forward.

The last military execution took place in 1961, when a US Army private was hanged after being convicted of raping an 11-year-old Austrian girl. The execution was authorised by then-President Dwight D Eisenhower and took place despite the victim’s family asking his successor, John F Kennedy, for clemency.

The last military execution by firing squad took place in January 1945, when a young US Army deserter, Eddie Slovik, was shot during the final months of the Second World War.

While Trump has never publicly advocated for a public execution, he has long supported the death penalty. In 1989, for example, he took out large ads in The New York Times calling for the execution of the Central Park Five – who had been convicted of rape and assault charges but were later exonerated.

The US government did not carry out executions for 17 years before the final year of Trump’s first term as president, when the government conducted a flurry of 13 executions.

Upon returning to office last January, Trump swiftly overturned predecessor Joe Biden’s moratorium on federal executions and signed an executive order aimed at “restoring” the death penalty and “protecting public safety”.