TUPAC MURDER TRIAL OPENS IN LAS VEGAS 30 YEARS AFTER SHOOTING

The trial of Duane Davis opened in Las Vegas on Monday in connection with the fatal 1996 shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur. Davis, 63, is accused of planning the killing rather than firing the shots himself. Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal told jurors that Davis orchestrated the attack as retaliation after Shakur's entourage beat Davis's nephew, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, outside the MGM Grand boxing venue hours before the shooting on 7 September 1996. Davis has pleaded not guilty, and his defence lawyer characterised the prosecution's account as "fiction".

Davis was the first person to be charged in the case, following an indictment in 2023. According to Palal, Davis spent approximately two hours planning the shooting after the altercation with his nephew, and Shakur was killed by men in the backseat of a white Cadillac firing on a black BMW carrying Shakur and Marion "Suge" Knight. In interviews with federal investigators in 2008, with the FBI in 1998 and 1999, and with Las Vegas police in 2009, Davis admitted to his involvement in the shooting, prosecutors said. Davis faces a potential life sentence if convicted of murder with a deadly weapon with intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang.

Shakur died aged 25 and remains a significant cultural figure in hip-hop history. Members of Shakur's family, including his stepbrother Maurice "Mopreme" Shakur, attended the trial opening. The 1996 killing had remained unsolved for nearly three decades before Davis's indictment, marking a significant development in one of the music industry's most prominent unsolved cases.