A US army psychiatrist charged over a 2009 killing rampage at a Texas military base will face a court martial where he could be sentenced to death, a military commander has ruled.
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 40, who US officials have linked to a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen, has been charged over the Fort Hood shootings in which 13 people were killed and 32 wounded.
Lieutenant General Donald Campbell, Fort Hood's commander, referred Hasan's case to a general court martial which "is authorised to consider death as an authorised punishment", according to a statement issued by Fort Hood.
A date had not been set for the court martial, the statement said. The first likely step would be for a military judge to inform Hasan of his rights at an arraignment.
According to witnesses who testified at evidentiary hearings at Fort Hood in 2010, Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" – Arabic for "God is Greatest" – just before opening fire on a group of soldiers undergoing health checks before being deployed to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hasan is confined to a wheelchair after he was paralysed from the chest down by bullet wounds inflicted by civilian police officers during the incident on 5 November 2009.
The attack raised concerns over the threat of "homegrown" militant attacks. US officials said Hasan had exchanged emails with Anwar al-Awlaki, an anti-American al Qaida figure based in Yemen.
Fort Hood is a major deployment point for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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