FORT HOOD, texas — Military lawyers advising Fort Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan at his court-martial Wednesday asked the judge to modify their role in the high-stakes trial, saying Hasan appears to be seeking the death penalty and that to assist him would be “repugnant.”
At a court hearing, the military lawyers did not explicitly say they wished to withdraw from the case but did argue a change in their “status” was necessary.
“We stand ready to defend Maj. Hasan should he decide he stands ready to fight the death penalty. We stand ready today. However, since that does not seem to be the case, we ask that we be standby counsel and not be asked to assist him in achieving his goal,” Hasan’s lead military adviser Col. Kris Poppe said.
Hasan, 42, is representing himself as he faces 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in connection with the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting.
If convicted by the 13-member jury, all fellow officers of his rank or higher, the American-born Muslim faces a possible death sentence.
In June, the military judge granted Hasan’s request to defend himself, ordering his three military attorneys to stay on as legal advisers or standby counsel.
The Army psychiatrist, who has no legal training, has since attempted to argue that he shot unarmed fellow soldiers preparing to deploy as a way of protecting Taliban allies overseas, a defense the judge has rejected. Hasan had been scheduled to deploy Nov. 28, 2009.
