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A military judge Friday once again held a mass shooting suspect in contempt of court for showing up to a pretrial hearing with a beard he had been ordered to shave.
Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was fined $1,000 for a second time.
The judge, Col. Gregory Gross, sent Hasan to a nearby trailer to watch the rest of the hearing on closed-circuit television, as he has done since showing up with a beard at a June hearing.
Beards are a violation of Army regulations. Hasan’s attorneys say he keeps declining to shave because he believes that doing so would violate his Muslim faith.
Hasan, who could face the death penalty if convicted, is accused of opening fire at the Fort Hood army base on November 5, 2009, in an attack that killed 12 soldiers and a civilian, and wounded 32 others.
The shooting jolted the US military and prompted calls for stronger safeguards against possible internal security threats and “homegrown” terror attacks.
Military Judge Colonel Gregory Gross has warned Hasan that he could be forcibly shaved if he continues to ignore grooming standards.
His next hearing is scheduled for Thursday and the court-martial is scheduled to begin on August 20.
The FBI alleges Hasan had contacts with firebrand US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi, a key leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who was killed in a September 2011 drone strike.
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Applying civilized protocol and due process to a savage is pointless.