( CNN ) -- The Army psychiatrist accused of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting told the military judge his Muslim faith requires him to wear a beard , marking the first time Maj. Nidal Hasan has made a statement in court . `` Your honor , in the name of almighty Allah , I am a Muslim , '' Hasan said . `` I believe that my religion requires me to wear a beard . '' Hasan made the statement after the presiding judge , Col. Gregory Gross , asked why he was still in contempt of court -- in other words , why Hasan had n't shaved his beard , which is against Army regulations . `` I am not trying to disrespect your authority as a military a judge . And I am not trying to disrupt the proceedings or the decorum of the court , '' he said . `` When I stand before God I am individually responsible for my actions . '' Gross has threatened to have Hasan forcibly shaved , previously citing the regulations and the right to ensure `` that a military trial proceeds without a distracting and disruptive sideshow . '' Hasan was found in contempt of court again Thursday , fined $ 1,000 and sent from the court to a trailer where Hasan watched the rest of the proceedings via closed circuit TV . A hearing has been scheduled for Thursday , September 6 , to discuss whether Hasan 's religious claims would prevent him from being shaved . Hasan 's court martial was scheduled to start last week at Fort Hood , in Killeen , Texas , where he is accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 . The trial was delayed when Hasan 's legal team petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals to prevent Gross from ordering Hasan 's facial hair shaved . The Court of Appeals found that Hasan 's petition was `` premature '' because Gross had not yet issued a definitive order . If an official order was given , the appeals court said , Hasan could file another petition . The beard issue surfaced in June , when Hasan , who remains in the Army while awaiting trial , appeared at a hearing with the beard . Gross postponed that hearing , then found Hasan in contempt of court at a July hearing , fined him $ 1,000 and warned him he would be shaved by force unless he got rid of the beard . Hasan had been expected to enter a plea during a previous hearing , but the proceedings were halted by the appellate court . Hasan has previously expressed interest in pleading guilty , but military regulations bar a judge from accepting a guilty plea in a capital case . Hasan is accused of opening fire at the post 's processing center , where soldiers were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq , in November 2009 . He faces a possible death sentence if convicted . He was paralyzed from the waist down in the shooting , when police officers exchanged fire with him . Hasan , a U.S.-born citizen of Palestinian descent , was a licensed psychiatrist who joined the Army in 1997 . He had been scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan before the killings , but had been telling his family since 2001 that he wanted to get out of the military . He is a Muslim who had told his family he had been taunted after the terrorist attacks of September 11 , 2001 . Investigations that followed the killings found he had been communicating via e-mail with Anwar al-Awlaki , the Yemeni-American radical cleric killed by a U.S. drone attack in 2011 . An FBI report in July found that a Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego that was investigating al-Awlaki passed two of the messages to another task force in the Washington area , where Hasan was living at the time . The report found those e-mails should have been given to the Pentagon , but the FBI saw no evidence of terrorist activities in his case , and believed the information in the e-mails was too sensitive to share . It noted that visiting extremist websites is not grounds for taking action . FBI official : Hasan should have been interviewed on e-mails with radical cleric .
Maj. Nidal Hasan explains to judge why he has n't shaved his beard . Army regulations require Hasan to be clean-shaven . He says shaving violates his Muslim beliefs ; judge finds him in contempt .