‘Truth or fiction’: US trial of Tupac Shakur’s accused killer begins

What the report says

Prosecutors opened the long-awaited murder trial of Duane Davis in Las Vegas, Nevada, on August 17, 2026, telling jurors that the former street gang leader orchestrated the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur. According to Al Jazeera’s report, the state says Davis acted as the on-site commander in a retaliatory drive-by shooting tied to a fight earlier that night at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino.

Davis, 63, has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder with a deadly weapon and an allegation that the killing was carried out to promote or assist a criminal gang. Prosecutors are seeking to prove that he helped plan the attack and supplied the weapon, but they are not accusing him of firing the shots. The defence countered that investigators still have limited evidence after nearly three decades and urged jurors to question whether the case amounts to truth or fiction.

The article says the shooting happened near the Las Vegas Strip area in Paradise, Nevada, after a clash involving Shakur, his entourage and members of Davis’s circle. Shakur was struck four times and died six days later. His death remains one of hip-hop’s defining tragedies and has long been linked to gang violence and the East Coast-West Coast tensions that shaped rap culture in the 1990s.

The trial, before Judge Carli Kierny, is expected to last up to six weeks and could include testimony from Marion “Suge” Knight, who was with Shakur the night he was killed. Al Jazeera reports that Davis’s public comments helped revive the dormant case before his 2023 arrest.