KILLEEN, Texas — Nearly four years after going on a deadly shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army base in 2009, Major Nidal Malik Hasan told a jury of senior Army officers Tuesday that "the evidence will clearly show that I am the shooter."
In an opening statement that took little more than a minute, Hasan, seated in a wheelchair and speaking quietly, said that there was death and destruction on both sides, but that the evidence presented by the prosecution would show only one side.
He said the evidence would show that he fought on the "wrong side," and then switched sides, and he seemed close to offering an apology for the shooting when he said, "We the mujahedeen are imperfect Muslims" trying to establish a perfect religion. He added, "I apologize for any mistakes I've made in this endeavor."
He did not elaborate. In other statements he has apologized to the Islamic fighters known as the mujahedeen for being part of an Army waging what he described as an immoral war against Muslims.
His remarks followed an hourlong opening argument by Colonel Steve Hendricks, one of the Army prosecutors, who presented a matter-of-fact yet dramatic retelling of the rampage and how it unfolded. Hasan, 42, an Army psychiatrist and a US-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, opened fire inside a medical processing complex known as the Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Nov. 5, 2009, shooting unarmed soldiers and commissioned officers as they tried to hide under desks and tables. His assault, one of the deadliest mass shootings at a US military base, left 13 dead and more than 30 others wounded.
Hendricks told the jurors that three weeks before the shooting Hasan was told by his superior that he would soon be deploying to Afghanistan, and had been upset by the news.
On Nov. 5, the day his unit was to report to the readiness center for processing, Hasan gave away some of his clothes and other belongings to a neighbor in the apartments where he lived, the prosecutor said. He drove to the complex and walked into the center, taking a seat with other soldiers in a waiting area called Station 13. He had paper towels stuffed in his uniform, to shield the rattle of the ammunition he carried, the prosecutor said.
Continuing the narrative, Hendricks said that the defendant had trained for that moment, taking classes to receive a state concealed handgun license and spending much of his time at a nearby shooting range. And after shouting "God is great" in Arabic, he stood and opened fire.
Using a semiautomatic handgun outfitted with two laser sights, he avoided those in civilian clothes to shoot those in uniform. Two men in civilian attire approached him as he calmly made his way outside, and he let them live.
The only civilian he killed, Michael Grant Cahill, 62, was a physician assistant and a retired National Guardsman who attempted to end the attack by trying to hit Hasan with a chair.
Hasan was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan on Nov. 28 with several Army Reserve units of mental health professionals trained to deal with combat stress. Five of the soldiers he is charged with killing came from those Reserve units.
Despite the evidence of Hasan's self-radicalization, prosecutors do not have to prove that he was a homegrown terrorist. He faces not terrorism but murder charges, and prosecutors have to prove only that he acted with intent and premeditation.
Prosecutors could have incorporated federal terrorism charges into the case but chose not to. Experts in military law said such a move would have unnecessarily complicated the case, because no US soldier has been prosecuted for terrorism offenses, creating an appellate issue should Hasan appeal a conviction.
Hendricks addressed Hasan's motive briefly, telling the jury that he did not want to deploy, and was inspired by what he saw as a duty to perform a jihad on Nov. 5, 2009. In the days and hours before the attack, investigators found, he performed Internet searches on suicide bombings and jihad.
As Hendricks spoke, the jury of nine colonels, three lieutenant colonels, and one major sat, their faces stern, many occasionally taking notes. The relatives of several of Hasan's victims sat about 20 feet away from him behind the prosecution's table.
Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. If convicted, he could become the first US soldier in 52 years to be sent to death row and executed at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The last military death sentence was carried out there in April 1961, with the hanging of John A. Bennett, an Army private who was convicted of the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl.