A former gang leader has been convicted of helping orchestrate the murder of US rapper Tupac Shakur nearly 30 years after the hip-hop star was shot in Las Vegas.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, was found guilty of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon by a jury in Nevada.
The conviction is the first in the case, which has remained unsolved since Shakur was shot in September 1996.
Prosecutors said Davis organised the attack and supplied the gun, although he was not accused of firing the shots.
They said the killing was an act of revenge following a fight involving Davis’s nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, and Shakur’s entourage earlier that night.
The events that preceded Shakur’s death were linked to a long-running rivalry between the South Side Compton Crips and the Mob Piru gang in California.
Shakur was closely associated with Death Row Records, whose founder Marion “Suge” Knight had ties to the Mob Piru gang.
Davis was a prominent figure in the South Side Compton Crips.
On 7 September 1996, Shakur and members of his entourage encountered Anderson at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas after attending a boxing match.
A fight broke out and Anderson was beaten.
Prosecutors said the incident prompted Davis to organise a retaliatory attack against Shakur and Knight.
Later that night, Shakur and Knight were travelling in a BMW when a white Cadillac pulled alongside their vehicle at a traffic light.
Shots were fired into the car.
Shakur was hit several times and died in hospital six days later. He was 25.
Knight survived the shooting.
The investigation remained unresolved for decades.
Davis later spoke publicly about the shooting and described his involvement in interviews and in his 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend.
Prosecutors used those statements as key evidence, arguing that Davis had admitted to helping organise the attack.
The defence argued that his accounts were unreliable and had been exaggerated for money and publicity.
Davis was arrested in 2023 and pleaded not guilty.
After the trial, jurors took less than three hours to reach their verdict.
Davis faces a possible life sentence and has said he intends to appeal.
The identity of the person who fired the fatal shots has not been established in court.
Anderson, who was long considered a suspect but was never charged in Shakur’s killing, died in a separate shooting in California in 1998.
For nearly three decades, Shakur’s murder has generated numerous theories and conspiracy claims. The conviction of Davis provides the first criminal judgment in a case that became one of the most enduring mysteries in music history.
