Jihadist Hasan charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder

Jihadist Nidal Hasan, has been charged with premeditated murder in the deaths of 12 soldiers and a civilian and could face other charges, an Army official said Thursday, according to the Washington Post. Christopher Grey, a spokesman for the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division says Hasan “has been charged with 13 specifications of premeditated murder under Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.” He told a news conference that “additional charges may be preferred in the future.”

Article 118 covers premeditated murder, for which the maximum penalty under the military justice system is death and the mandatory minimum is life imprisonment with eligibility for parole.

Grey described the murder charges as “the first step in the court martial process” and emphasized that a multi-agency investigation of the Nov. 5 shooting continues. He indicated that investigators have not yet settled on a motive for the massacre.

“We’re looking at every reason for this shooting,” he said. “We’re aggressively following every possible lead.”

Grey added: “We still believe that there was only one gunman at the scene involved in the actual shootings.” The statement left open the possibility that someone else instigated the attack. Investigators have been examining Hasan’s relationship with a radical Muslim prayer leader who formerly served at a Northern Virginia mosque that Hasan attended for a time in 2001. Hasan, who was born in Arlington, Va., lived in the Washington area while he was attending medical school in Bethesda, Md., and subsequently while he was working at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the District.

The White House, meanwhile, said President Obama has ordered a review of how U.S. intelligence agencies handled information about Hasan and asked that preliminary results be provided by Nov. 30. Obama directed John Brennan, a presidential assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, to oversee the investigation, which is aimed in part at determining whether warning signs about Hasan were missed.
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According to a memo released Thursday by the White House, Obama ordered the investigation the day after the shootings. In the memo to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, National Intelligence Director Dennis C. Blair and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Obama said he wanted the review “to determine how any such intelligence was handled, shared, and acted upon within individual departments and agencies and what intelligence was shared with others.”

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November 12, 2009 · Filed Under muslims, Nidal Malik Hasan, Terrorism


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