Fort Hood Butcher’s Beard Forcibly Shaved

Major Nidal Hassan must conform to Army guidelines while rotting away in prison:

The army psychiatrist sentenced to death for the Fort Hood shooting rampage has been forcibly shaved, an army spokesman has said.

Major Nidal Hasan began growing a beard after the November 2009 shooting that left 13 dead and 30 wounded. The beard prompted delays to his court martial because it violated army grooming regulations. He was convicted of all charges in August at his court-martial at the central Texas army post and sentenced to death.

Hasan, 42, who was born in America, is an inmate of the US detention barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, home to the military death row. Lieutenant Colonel S Justin Platt, an army spokesman, said in a statement on Tuesday that Hasan had been shaved. He did not specify when or provide details.

Officials at Fort Leavenworth previously had said Hasan would be subject to army regulations.

Hasan dispensed with all criminal defence counsel and represented himself at his trial.

Hasan said he grew the beard because his Muslim faith required it and was not meant as a show of disrespect. However, Colonel Gregory Gross, the original judge presiding over Hasan’s court martial, ordered Hasan to be clean-shaven or be forcibly shaved before his trial.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.