Closing arguments begin in trial over rapper Tupac Shakur’s murder

The trial over the murder of US rapper Tupac Shakur has entered its final phase, 30 years after the killing. Prosecutors and defense lawyers presented their closing arguments in a Las Vegas court, after which 12 jurors are expected to decide the case.

Duane Davis, a former gang leader, was arrested in Las Vegas in 2023. He faces a murder charge involving a deadly weapon and has pleaded not guilty. A conviction could bring a life sentence. Nevada law allows prosecutors to pursue a murder conviction against someone who helped another person carry out the killing.

Shakur was shot from a moving car on September 7, 1996, and died six days later in hospital. He was 25. On the night of the shooting, he was travelling with Suge Knight, co-founder of Death Row Records, after the pair attended a Mike Tyson boxing match in the casino city.

A fight later broke out at a hotel. Shakur and people accompanying him assaulted Davis’s nephew, according to the account presented in the case. Davis and his nephew belonged to a southern California gang that was feuding with the gang associated with Knight.

The case relies heavily on Davis’s own past statements. He had repeatedly said, including during police questioning, that he was in the Cadillac from which the shots were fired. He also wrote about the incident in his 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend.” Davis later denied in television interviews that he had even been in Las Vegas. His defense has focused on presenting him as a liar and an attention-seeker, while prosecutors argue that he devised the killing to avenge the attack on his nephew.