SAN ANTONIO — An attorney for the Army psychiatrist charged in the mass shooting at Fort Hood says his client will have his first court hearing in his hospital room on Saturday.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's civilian attorney, John Galligan, said Friday that military prosecutors notified him of their plans for the hearing at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
Hasan has been recovering there since the Nov. 5 rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and more than 30 wounded. Hasan was shot by civilian members of Fort Hood's police force.
The hearing is to determine whether Hasan will be placed in pre-trial confinement — which usually means jail. But Galligan says he'll argue that Hasan should remain in intensive care because he is paralyzed and still needs hospital care.
Fort Hood officials didn't immediately return a call about the hearing.
New questions have also begun to emerge about how so many signs were missed or ignored, the latest of which is a series of 18 e-mails between Major Hasan and Anwar Awlaki, who's considered a recruiter for al Qaeda. One reportedly read, "I can't wait to join you" in the afterlife.
"It sounds like code words," said Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer with the Center for Advance Defense Studies. "That's he's actually either offering himself up or that he's already crossed that line in his own mind."
The Secretary of Defense announced Friday that the Pentagon is launching its own investigation into the shooting.
Four soldiers wounded in the shooting are still in the hospital; three are in stable condition and one is in fair condition.
