Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, is shown in a 2007 file photo from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the in the Nov. 5, 2009, massacre at Fort Hood, Texas. UPI |
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FORT HOOD, Texas, July 20 (UPI) -- A judge Wednesday set a trial date for accused Fort Hood, Texas, shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who said he has released his lead attorney, John Galligan.
Hasan told military judge Col. Gregory Gross Wednesday he voluntarily released Galligan, who had represented him since just after the Nov. 5, 2009, massacre, for which Hasan faces 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditate murder, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
The judge said Hasan's court-martial will begin March 5, 2012. Hasan will be represented by three military attorneys appointed by the Army -- two of whom participated in his defense during a November pretrial evidentiary hearing, the newspaper said.
The development came after Galligan said a key White House report was being kept from the defense team. The Army has also not provided all e-mails between suspect Hasan and radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who Hasan allegedly asked for spiritual guidance about violence, Galligan said in a court filing.
Hasan, 40, who faces the death penalty, deferred his plea at Wednesday's arraignment.
Hasan was wounded and taken into custody by Fort Hood police after the rampage, which occurred less than a month before Hasan was to have been deployed to Afghanistan. He is paralyzed from the waist down.
Jurors are to be drawn from Fort Sill, an Army post near Lawton, Okla., about 85 miles southwest of Oklahoma City and 300 miles north of Fort Hood.
Concerning the White House report, which is an intelligence assessment, Army lawyers said in the filing Thursday they objected to providing the information to Galligan but would let Gross review the report to determine which portions "should be made available for review and inspection to defense."
The Army lawyers said they did not believe they possessed the 18 e-mails in which Hasan allegedly asked Awlaki for spiritual guidance about violence, which is why they gave Galligan only nine, the court filing indicated.
In one e-mail, Hasan allegedly asked Awlaki, an alleged al-Qaida senior talent recruiter and motivator, if it was spiritually permissible to kill innocent Americans, Fox News said.
In another Hasan allegedly wrote, "I can't wait to join you [in the afterlife]."
U.S. officials would not comment on the e-mails' contents.
A February U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee report said U.S. officials knew Hasan had communicated with Awlaki, now in hiding in Yemen, but failed to alert the Army.
The report, titled "A Ticking Time Bomb," said from 2003 to 2009, when Hasan was a psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, he openly suggested revenge might be a plausible defense for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and he spoke defensively about Osama bin Laden.
