Three decades after the killing of Tupac Shakur shocked the music world, a man in his 60s is finally going on trial for allegedly orchestrating the shooting. The trial of 63-year-old Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis is set to begin on Monday in Las Vegas, where he faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang.

US prosecutors aim to prove that Davis orchestrated Tupac’s killing by supplying the gun, but they are not claiming he pulled the trigger. The case has intrigued fans and conspiracy theorists alike since 1996, and this trial could finally put the question to rest.

Tupac Amaru Shakur, known popularly as Tupac or 2Pac, was a California-based rapper who became an icon of the genre during a short but glittering career in the 1990s. His music drew heavily on his experiences of violence on the streets of California, as well as themes of gang life, single motherhood, love, civil rights, and racism and police violence in America.

Tupac was signed to Death Row Records later in his career, and a defining theme was his rivalry with East Coast rapper The Notorious B.I.G. He was involved in gang violence and had survived a previous shooting before being fatally wounded in a drive-by attack in Nevada on September 7, 1996. He died six days later at age 25.

Hours before the shooting, Tupac and Death Row founder Marion ‘Suge’ Knight got into a fight at the MGM Grand after a Mike Tyson boxing match. The group they fought with included Davis’s nephew, Orlando ‘Baby Lane’ Anderson. Later, Tupac was shot six times from a white Cadillac while in a car on his way to a club.

Davis, the former leader of the South Side Compton Crips, is the only person ever put on trial for Tupac’s murder. He entered a not guilty plea in November 2023. The trial is happening entirely because of Davis’s own words in his 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” and subsequent interviews, where he detailed how he hunted Tupac and Knight.

The trial is expected to last four to six weeks. Prosecutors plan to call between 35 and 45 witnesses, including police and technical experts. Knight, who is serving a 28-year prison sentence for a separate killing, is on the witness list but has said he wants no part. The defence intends to call only a handful of witnesses, and it remains unclear whether Davis will testify.

Source: www.aljazeera.com