Fort Hood building torn down

A memorial is seen near the podium during a special service for the 13 victims of the shooting rampage by US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan in 2009, at Fort Hood, Texas. File picture: Jim Watson

A memorial is seen near the podium during a special service for the 13 victims of the shooting rampage by US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan in 2009, at Fort Hood, Texas. File picture: Jim Watson

Published Feb 19, 2014

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Dallas - The US military has demolished the building at a Texas base where a former Army psychiatrist went on a shooting rampage in 2009, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others, military officials said on Tuesday.

Teams tore down the building that was part of the Soldier Readiness Processing Centre and will plant trees, install a gazebo and mark the site with a remembrance plaque for the victims, Fort Hood officials said in a statement.

The move was done “in co-ordination with family members of the deceased and individuals wounded”, it said.

The central Texas military base is where soldiers prepare to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nidal Hasan, an American-born Muslim, opened fire on unarmed soldiers preparing for deployment on November 5, 2009, in what he later called retaliation for US wars in the Muslim world.

Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest” in Arabic) during the attack and later said he wanted to be a martyr.

Hasan, 43, was convicted by a military jury of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder and sentenced to death in August.

He currently resides on death row at the military's maximum-security facility in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, pending an automatic appeal required by the military justice system. - Reuters

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