The murder trial of Tupac Shakur has begun in Las Vegas, nearly 30 years after the rapper was killed in a drive-by shooting.
Shakur died on 13 September 1996, aged 25, six days after four men in a white Cadillac opened fire on his vehicle.
Prosecutors allege that former gang leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis orchestrated the shooting as revenge for a fight involving his nephew. They acknowledge Davis did not fire the fatal shots, but claim he planned the attack.
“Duane Davis did not pull the trigger. But he did plan the shooting in retaliation,” chief deputy district attorney Binu Palal told jurors, adding that Davis had previously spoken about his involvement.
Davis, who was arrested in 2023, has pleaded not guilty. His defence team has described the prosecution’s case as “fiction” and argued that the investigation was flawed and took decades to reach an accusation.
Davis previously discussed the killing in his 2019 memoir Compton Street Legend, describing himself as one of the few surviving eyewitnesses and expressing remorse. He has since claimed that parts of the book were fictionalised and that he did not write all of it.
The trial marks a major development in one of hip-hop’s most enduring murder mysteries.
