Prosecutors accuse 'Keffe D' of ordering the murder of Tupac Shakur following an assult in Las Vegas

Nearly three decades after the shooting that shocked the music industry, the trial for the murder of Tupac Shakur made progress on Monday in Las Vegas.

The sole defendant in the case, 63-year-old Duane "Keffe D" Davis, faces charges of murder with a deadly weapon, committed on behalf of a criminal gang. If found guilty, the defendant could be sentenced to life in prison.

On the first day of the prosecution's opening arguments, the prosecution argued before the jury that the legendary rapper's death, which occurred on September 7, 1996, was not an accident, but rather a meticulously orchestrated act of retaliation.

According to Senior Assistant District Attorney Binu Palal, the attack on Shakur occurred two and a half hours after the rapper and his entourage publicly assaulted Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, Davis' nephew, in a hotel lobby following a Mike Tyson boxing match.

"It was an act of revenge," the prosecutor argued, asserting that although Davis did not pull the trigger, he was the one who supplied the weapon to the passengers in the back seat of the vehicle from which the shots were fired at Shakur's car.

The confessions that revived the case

Over the years, stalled police investigations left the crime unpunished. However, the situation took a definitive turn when Davis gave interviews to the media and co-authored his memoir in 2019, titled "Compton Street Legend," in which he detailed his involvement in the shooting from a white Cadillac.

Prosecutors maintain that the defendant's own testimonies and public statements reopened the investigation, arguing that Davis harbored a resentment for decades that led him to boast about the incident.

The defense calls the account "fiction"

For its part, Davis's defense team, led by attorney Michael Sanft, discredited the prosecution's position by pointing out that the narrative presented is mere commercial "fiction" conceived to profit from the sale of a book.

According to courtroom coverage broadcast by CBS affiliate KLAS-TV, the defense questioned the lack of physical evidence and living witnesses 30 years later, suggesting that the original police investigation was flawed and riddled with procedural gaps.

Close relatives of Shakur, including his brother Maurice, attended the first day in court to closely follow the testimony of the first witnesses in a trial expected to last several weeks and include testimony from more than 30 people.