Hassan Akbar

Sergeant Hassan Akbar (born Mark Fidel Kools, about 1971) was a U.S. Army soldier convicted and sentenced to the death penalty for the murder of two fellow soldiers during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Akbar was born in the United States and studied at the University of California, Davis taking a double major in aeronautical and mechanical engineering, and graduating with a bachelor's degree. After joining the United States Army, he was assigned to the 326th Engineer Battalion of the 101st Airborne, and was eventually deployed to Kuwait.

He was charged in a grenade and shooting attack that killed two U.S. officers and wounded 14 soldiers on March 23, 2003. The attack took place at Camp Pennsylvania, Kuwait, a rear base camp for the invasion where Akbar lobbed hand grenades into a tent during early morning when the majority of troops were sleeping and fired his rifle into the ensuing chaos. News reports at the time claimed that Akbar had been recently reprimanded for insubordination and was told he would not join his unit's push into Iraq.

In a diary entry dated February 4, 2003, Akbar referred to mistreatment by his fellow soldiers:

Prosecutors alleged that his diary entries and his actions (stealing grenades and turning off the generator that lit the camp) showed that the attack was premeditated. One diary entry dated 1997 said "My life will not be complete unless America is destroyed."

Although Akbar confessed to the crimes, his lawyers claimed that he had a history of mental illness which was known to the military. During jury selection, the defence lawyers were said to favor jurors who have had experience dealing with mental illness. Akbar also suffers from sleep apnea and fell asleep several times during court proceedings.

He was tried in Fort Bragg, North Carolina in front of a military jury of nine officers, with ranks from colonel to major, and six senior sergeants. There were 13 men and two women on the jury.

On April 21, 2005 he was found guilty of two counts of premeditated murder (of Army Capt. Christopher Seifert, 27, who was shot in the back, and Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, struck by shrapnel) and three counts of attempted premeditated murder.

On April 28, 2005, after about seven hours of deliberation, Akbar was sentenced to death. The sentence will be reviewed by a commanding officer and automatically appealed. If Akbar is executed, it would be by lethal injection.

Since the Vietnam War, it is the first time that a U.S. soldier has been prosecuted for the murder of another soldier during wartime and the first time a U.S. soldier has been given the death penalty for killing a fellow soldier. The last U.S. military execution was in 1961.