A UK Cabinet minister risked inflaming tensions with Donald Trump today as she hit out at a ‘disturbing’ US plan to live stream a firing squad for a terrorist.
Bridget Phillipson stressed that the decision over the execution of former army major Nidal Hasan was a ‘matter for the US Government’.
But the Labour Party chair said Britain had a ‘long-standing’ opposition to the death penalty and she personally found the situation ‘rather disturbing’.
The intervention could spark a new flashpoint with the volatile US president, as Andy Burnham struggles to foster good Transatlantic relations.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has confirmed the firing squad for Hasan will be broadcast live on December 3, saying people need to see there are ‘serious consequences for these types of things’.
It would be the first public execution since 1937, when convicted murderer Roscoe Jackson was hanged in Missouri.
Hasan murdered 13 people on the Fort Hood military base in Texas in 2009.
During his trial, Nidal Hasan told jurors he had ‘switched sides’ in what he called America’s war with Islam
Bridget Phillipson said Britain had a ‘long-standing’ opposition to the death penalty and she personally found the situation ‘rather disturbing’
Ms Phillipson dodged when asked whether Andy Burnham should bring the issue up with Donald Trump (pictured together in New York last month)
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has confirmed the firing squad for Hasan will be broadcast live on December 3
Shocked US military personnel trying to reach friends and family outside Fort Hood on November 5, 2009 in Killeen, Texas
The Islamic extremist walked into a medical readiness building on the base in November 2009 carrying two guns and several magazines of ammunition. He shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’, Arabic for ‘God is great’, and opened fire on soldiers awaiting medical tests and vaccines.
The mass shooting, which killed 13 and left 32 wounded, was the deadliest attack on a domestic military installation in US history. Hasan was shot and paralysed from the waist down in the resulting gunfire and was sentenced to death in 2013.
Hasan said he launched the terror attack at Fort Hood because he was angry American troops were deployed to Afghanistan and wanted to protect Islamic and Taliban leaders.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump ordered that Hasan be put to death by firing squad.
Mr Hegseth said overnight: ‘We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.’
Asked about the execution plans on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Ms Phillipson said it was a ‘a matter for the US Government’.
‘It is not something that the British Government would routinely have a position on,’ she said.
‘The view of the Government is always that we are opposed to the death penalty.
Nidal Hasan (pictured), the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people and wounded over 30 in a mass shooting at Fort Hood is set to face death by firing squad in December
Since 1608, at least 144 civilian prisoners have been executed by shooting in America, nearly all in Utah. Only four have occurred since 1977, when the use of capital punishment resumed after a ten-year pause
‘My personal view is that I am opposed to the death penalty and I find that rather disturbing, is my honest reaction.
‘I think you can have a system that provides clear consequences without… I am proud our country did away with the death penalty a very very long time ago.’
Pressed whether the PM should raise the issue with the US, she said: ‘As I say it is a matter for the US Government, they are a close ally. Does that mean that we support everything the US Government does, no it doesn’t.
‘But that is not for us to involve ourselves in what are ultimately questions of US domestic policy.
‘But I am a longstanding opponent of the death penalty… Governments of all political persuasions actually have had a longstanding commitment to not wanting to see the death penalty across the world.’
