Former gang leader Duane 'Keffe D' Davis convicted of Tupac Shakur's 1996 murder

A former gang leader accused of orchestrating the killing of hip-hop star Tupac Shakur in the United States in 1996 ⁠has been convicted of murder for his role in the long-unsolved crime.

A jury in Clark County, Nevada, deliberated for nearly three hours on Monday before finding Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, guilty of a single count of first-degree ⁠murder with a deadly weapon, capping an 11-day trial in a courtroom in the city of Las Vegas.

Davis will face a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole at his sentencing on October 13. He told the judge “he plans to appeal this matter”.

Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips street gang in Los Angeles, was accused of ordering the drive-by shooting that killed Shakur on September 7, 1996. Prosecutors said he was enraged because members of Shakur’s entourage had beaten his nephew at a Las Vegas casino hours earlier.

“Duane Davis, in the culture of gangs, could not let that stand,” prosecutor Binu Palal said during closing arguments. “So what did he do? He acquired a firearm, got his group together and went hunting for Mr Shakur.”

Shakur, who was in Las Vegas for a Mike Tyson heavyweight fight, was shot about two hours after the casino confrontation by a gunman in a white Cadillac that pulled up at a red light alongside the BMW in which the rapper was riding in the front passenger seat.

According to prosecutors, Davis handed the gun to someone sitting in the back seat of the Cadillac and ordered that person to shoot Shakur, who died six days later.

Davis is the only person who was in the Cadillac that evening who is still alive.

The driver of the BMW, Death Row Records cofounder Marion “Suge” Knight, was wounded.

The killing of Shakur, also known as 2Pac, has been one of the US’s most notorious cold cases, prompting endless debate among music fans over who did it and why.

The investigation into Shakur’s murder sputtered for decades because of a lack of evidence, but the case was revived when Davis’s memoirs were published in 2019. Davis has repeatedly boasted over the years of involvement in Shakur’s murder, in interviews with law enforcement and media and ultimately in his autobiography, Compton Street Legend.

He has since backtracked and pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.

Palal, the prosecutor, played clips from Davis’s various alleged confessions as part of his closing arguments.

Michael Sanft, Davis’s defence attorney, characterised his client’s confessions as fiction and lies partly designed to promote his book.

“You’re reading a book that is fiction and not fact,” Sanft told the jury. “But the state wants you to believe that this is somehow a confession, that he was there and present at the time of the shooting.”

Sanft said there was no evidence implicating Davis in Shakur’s murder other than his own statements.

In the run-up to the trial, Davis’s lawyers tried in vain to keep the book from being introduced as evidence, along with remarks he made in an interview with police in 2008.

Shakur, who was 25 when he was killed, was a key figure in a hip-hop rivalry pitting US East Coast rappers against West Coast artists.

Known for hits including “California Love” and “All Eyez on Me”, Shakur – the son of a Black Panther – was raised in Harlem and Baltimore, but became the epitome of California hip-hop when he signed with Los Angeles-based Death Row Records.