Plans to livestream the execution of a Fort Hood terrorist have been slammed as “abhorrent” by Andy Burnham.
Nidal Malik Hasan, now 56, had been sitting on death row for over 13 years after he horrifically killed 12 US servicemen, one civilian, and injured more than 30 others in 2009.
The Pentagon confirmed he would be executed by firing squad on December 3 at the Killeen, Texas base he committed his vile acts.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth then announced it would be livestreamed, saying: “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it.”
The Prime Minister, told The Rest is Politics – hosted by Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell – that he would “never support” public execution.
“It’s something that I can’t say I ever want to see anywhere in the world, Alastair,” he told the podcast.
“It’s something that I find quite abhorrent in many ways.
“But, you know, I only want to speak for what we will do and why we will do it.”
JD Vance has already cast doubt that a livestream would happen, but if it does, the Vice President said he was not going to watch it.
Mr Vance, a Catholic convert who has written extensively about his faith, dismissed questions over how his religion coloured the issue of the death penalty.
He said: “Whatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope the people don’t forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people.”
Democratic strategist Mally Smith condemned the livestreaming as “morally beneath the United States”.
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“You see that in the other countries that broadcast executions – there are only two other countries that do: Iran and Afghanistan. And if you are the company you keep, that’s pretty crappy company to be with,” he told GB News.
But former Marco Rubio Chief of Staff Matt Terrill told GB News the US has already had recent “public executions”.
He said: “We had a wide open border on President Biden. That was beneath this country. Yeah, we’ve had public executions in this country.
“We had people who came here under President Biden illegally and killed individuals in our country.”
Mr Terrill insisted the Secretary of War and Donald Trump were implementing a deterrence to those who commit heinous crimes and “we may do that in a public fashion”.
Executions have been held privately in the US for around nine decades.
The UK, meanwhile, suspended the death penalty in 1965.
Cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson previously said she found the plans “disturbing” and that she was “proud that our country did away with the death penalty a very, very long time ago”.
The equalities minister told the BBC: “The view of the Government is always that we’re repulsed to the death penalty, my personal view is that I’m opposed to the death penalty.
“And I find that rather disturbing is my honest reaction.”
She added: “It’s a matter for the US government.
“They are a close ally, does that mean that we support everything the US government does? No, but that’s not for us to involve ourselves in what are ultimately questions of US domestic policy.”
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