Former gang leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis is set to go on trial in Las Vegas over the 1996 murder of American rapper Tupac Shakur.
The trial, which is expected to last about a month, centres on prosecutors’ claim that Davis ordered the killing and supplied the gun used in the drive-by shooting that left Shakur fatally wounded on September 7, 1996.
Shakur, popularly known as 2Pac, was shot after attending a Mike Tyson boxing match at the MGM Grand. He died six days later at the age of 25.
Prosecutors allege that the killing was linked to the long-running rivalry between Death Row Records on the West Coast and Bad Boy Records on the East Coast.
They say tensions escalated after Shakur and Death Row boss Marion “Suge” Knight confronted and assaulted Davis’s nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, at the MGM Grand.
According to prosecutors, Davis later joined Anderson and others in a white Cadillac that pulled alongside Shakur’s vehicle, from which shots were fired.
The case remained unsolved for decades before Davis’s 2019 memoir brought renewed attention to the investigation. In the book, Davis admitted being in the front seat of the Cadillac and said he handed a pistol to people in the back, although he did not identify the shooter.
Davis was arrested in 2023 and has pleaded not guilty. He now denies involvement in the killing and says he was in Los Angeles when Shakur was shot.
If convicted, the 63-year-old could face life imprisonment without parole.
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