text: The soldier on trial for the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood didn't give a closing argument on Thursday even after prosecutors laid out a detailed roadmap of their case and asked jurors for a verdict that would allow the death penalty. 
   
   U.S. Army Col. Steve Henricks, a member of the prosecution, has his vehicle inspected upon arriving at the Lawrence H. Williams Judicial Center as proceedings in the court martial of U.S. Army Maj. Nidal... (Associated Press) 
   
   A U.S. Army military police officer patrols in front of the Lawrence H. Williams Judicial Center as proceedings in the court martial of U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan continue, Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013,... (Associated Press) 
   
   A U.S. Army military police officer watches as members of media are escorted into the Lawrence H. Williams Judicial Center as proceedings in the court martial of U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan continue,... (Associated Press) 
   
   Lead prosecutor, U.S. Army Col. Michael Mulligan, arrives at the Lawrence H. Williams Judicial Center as proceedings in the court martial of U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan continue, Thursday, Aug. 22,... (Associated Press) 
   
   A Fort Hood police officer walks in front of the heavily fortified Lawrence H. Williams Judicial Center as proceedings in the court martial of U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan begin, Thursday, Aug. 22,... (Associated Press) 
   
   Maj. Nidal Hasan is acting as his own attorney but declined to address jurors after prosecutors wrapped up their closing argument. When the judge told Hasan he could begin, he said: "The defense chooses not to make a closing statement." 
   
   Prosecutors said there was "no doubt" that Hasan had planned and carried out the deadliest mass shooting ever on a U.S. military base. 
   
   Hasan is facing numerous counts of premeditated murder for the attack that killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others at the Army post in central Texas. He could face the death penalty if convicted. 
   
   The Army psychiatrist told jurors during a brief opening statement nearly two weeks ago that evidence would "clearly show" he was the shooter, and he described himself as a soldier who had "switched sides." But since then, he has sat mostly silent. 
   
   Hasan has raised few objections during the 13-day trial, and he questioned only three of the nearly 90 witnesses called by prosecutors. He also presented only a single piece of evidence: an evaluation from his boss that called him a good soldier. 
   
   On Thursday, military prosecutors asked jurors for a unanimous conviction on the premeditated murder charges, which would allow them to seek the death penalty _ the government's priority in the case. 
   
   The prosecutor, Col. Steve Henricks, repeatedly emphasized the word "premeditation," trying to dissuade the jury _ 13 high-ranking military officers _ of even considering a conviction on a lesser charge that would take the death penalty off the table. 
   
   "There's no doubt the evidence you heard in this case shows he committed the offense," Henricks said. 
   
   Henricks said Hasan asked for the highest-tech weapon available when he went to a gun store a few months before the Nov. 5, 2009 attack, and he soon began practicing at a gun range. Hasan also used laser sights, which Henricks said "established intent to kill." 
   
   The prosecutor noted that the shootings, which started inside a medical building crowded with soldiers preparing to deploy, came the same day Hasan's unit was at that building. Hasan was assigned to soon join the unit in Afghanistan on a six-month tour. 
   
   The last witness to testify for prosecutors had said Hasan told her shortly before the shooting, without prompting, that the Army would "pay" if he were ever ordered deployed overseas. 
   
   "Some things speak for themselves. It doesn't require any evidence _ because it's no coincidence _ that the accused did his crime on Five November," Henricks told jurors. 
   
   Henricks also noted that Hasan targeted soldiers, leaving most civilians unscathed. After Hasan fled the medical building, and civilians outside asked him what was going on, "he tells them it's a paintball gun. It's a training exercise. He's keeping his wits about him even after what happened," Henricks said. 
   
   Hasan, an American-born Muslim, has been unapologetic about saying the rampage was necessary to protect Muslim insurgents abroad from American soldiers preparing for combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. But most of his arguments have played out through leaks to the media or directly to the judge, so they couldn't be considered by the jury. 
   
   ___ 
   
   Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report from Fort Hood. 
   
   ___ 
   
   Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber ||||| Fort Hood, Texas (CNN) -- Deliberations were suspended for the night Thursday in the court-martial of the Army psychiatrist charged with massacring soldiers at Fort Hood. 
   
   The jury will continue weighing the fate Friday morning of Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is charged with 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder in the November 5, 2009, shooting rampage. 
   
   The only real question likely facing the jury is Hasan's degree of guilt, given that he told the court during opening arguments that the evidence would clearly show he was the shooter. 
   
   Court reconvened briefly Thursday evening after the jury said it had two questions. Jurors asked to have police officer Mark Todd's testimony read back to them and asked to see a map of buildings at Fort Hood. 
   
   The jury of 13 military officers began deliberations after Hasan declined to make a statement during closing arguments. The prosecution urged the jury to convict, saying the evidence showed he believed he had a jihad duty to kill as many soldiers as possible. 
   
   "The defense chooses not to make a closing statement," Hasan told the court, refusing to challenge any of the evidence presented during 13 days of testimony in the court-martial. 
   
   If the jury of 13 senior officers unanimously convicts Hasan of two or more counts of premeditated murder, he faces a possible death sentence in the penalty phase. 
   
   "There is no doubt, as I said in the beginning, the accused is the shooter," the prosecutor, Col. Steven Henricks, told the jury. 
   
   "The only question for you is ...is this a premeditated design to kill?" 
   
   For more than 90 minutes, the prosecutor took the jury methodically through the evidence in the case, meticulously piecing together how they say Hasan prepared and planned for an attack at a deployment processing center for soldiers deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq. 
   
   Prosecutors have maintained the American-born Muslim underwent a progressive radicalization that led to the massacre at the sprawling central Texas base. 
   
   "He did not want to deploy, and he came to believe he had a jihad duty to kill as many soldiers as possible," Henricks told the jury. 
   
   Hasan picked the day -- November 5, 2009 -- because it was when the units he was scheduled to deploy with to Afghanistan were scheduled to go through the processing center, he said. 
   
   Hasan, who has been acting as his own attorney, rested his case without calling a single witness or taking the stand to testify on his own behalf. 
   
   His decision not to offer a defense was an anticlimactic end to the trial in which prosecution witnesses, primarily survivors, painted a horrific picture of what unfolded inside a processing center during the attack. 
   
   During closing arguments, prosecutors showed a graphic FBI video of the crime scene hours after the rampage, where bodies, blood and bullets still covered the floor. 
   
   As the video was shown to the jury, some of the family members of those killed fought back tears. 
   
   One woman laid her head on her husband's shoulder, tears pouring down her cheeks, while another woman -- a wife of a victim -- left the courtroom. 
   
   For his part, Hasan watched the video, appearing to pay close attention. 
   
   Hasan, who has insisted that the jury not be allowed to consider lesser charges against him, said his attack on soldiers at Fort Hood was not an act of "sudden passion." 
   
   There was "adequate provocation" for the attack because the soldiers were going to participate in "an illegal war" in Afghanistan, Hasan told the military judge Wednesday, arguing against the jury being allowed to consider voluntary manslaughter or unpremeditated murder. 
   
   Prosecutors argued against the inclusion of lesser charges, saying the attack wasn't carried out in "the heat of sudden passion," and Hasan said he agreed. 
   
   Hasan rests case, calls no witnesses 
   
   Much has been made of Hasan's defense or, as his stand-by attorneys have said, the lack of it. Judge Tara Osborn declined a request by Hasan's attorneys to drop out of the case. The attorneys argued that Hasan was helping the prosecution put him to death. 
   
   There may be something to that claim. 
   
   Hasan took credit for the shooting rampage at the outset of the trial, telling the jury during opening statements that the evidence will show "I was the shooter." 
   
   The judge barred Hasan from pleading guilty at the start of the court-martial. Under military law, defendants cannot enter guilty pleas in capital punishment cases. 
   
   Osborn has refused to allow Hasan to argue "defense of others," a claim that he carried out the shootings to protect the Afghan Taliban and its leaders from U.S. soldiers. 
   
   Hasan challenges witness account of shooting 
   
   Perhaps as a way around that ruling, Hasan in recent days has leaked documents through his civilian attorney to The New York Times and Fox News that offer a glimpse of his justification for carrying out the attack. Among the documents was a mental health evaluation conducted by a military panel to determine whether Hasan was fit to stand trial. 
   
   "I don't think what I did was wrong because it was for the greater cause of helping my Muslim brothers," he told the panel, according to pages of the report published by The New York Times. 
   
   He also said, according to the documents: "I'm paraplegic and could be in jail for the rest of my life. However, if I died by lethal injection, I would still be a martyr." 
   
   Military prosecutors called 89 witnesses and submitted more than 700 pieces of evidence before resting their case, hoping to show that the American-born Muslim had undergone what they described as a progressive radicalization. 
   
   They have argued to the jury that Hasan, who was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan, did not want to fight other Muslims and believed he had a jihad duty to kill as many soldiers as possible. 
   
   The judge excluded much of the evidence that the prosecution contends goes to the heart of the motive for the attack, including e-mail communications between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born cleric who officials say became a key member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011. 
   
   She also declined to allow prosecutors to use materials they maintain showed Hasan's interest in the actions of Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar, the American soldier sentenced to death for killing two soldiers and wounding more than a dozen others at the start of the Iraq war, an attack he said he carried out to stop soldiers from killing Muslims. 
   
   Along with the e-mails and the material related to Akbar, Osborn also declined to allow the use of Hasan's academic presentation on suicide bombings, saying "motive is not an element of the crime." 
   
   The final witness called by the prosecution, Dr. Tonya Kozminski, testified Tuesday about what Hasan told her would happen to the Army if he were deployed. 
   
   "The last thing he said ... 'They will pay,' " Kozminski said. 
   
   Hasan's defense strategy martyrdom? 
   
   CNN's Ed Lavandera and Jason Morris contributed to this report.
target: – It seems clear now that Nidal Hasan's decision to act as his own attorney in the Fort Hood shooting trial was really a decision to not act as an attorney of any kind. A day after he rested his case without calling a single witness, Hasan skipped his closing argument, reports the AP. After prosecutors laid out in detail Hasan's role in the 2009 rampage that killed 13 people, the judge told Hasan he could go. "The defense chooses not to make a closing statement," he said. Hasan's decisions over the last two days seem to support the claim made by his defense team earlier in the military trial that he hopes to get the death penalty, notes CNN. He admitted in his opening statement that he was, in fact, the shooter. The jury of 13 officers will now begin deliberations. If they reach a unanimous guilty verdict, the death penalty is possible.