Arabic version: الحكم على دواين ديفيس بالسجن 40 عاماً بتهمة قتل توباك شاكور

According to BBC News, former gang boss Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been sentenced to at least 40 years in prison for orchestrating the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur. A jury found Davis, 63, guilty in September of one count of murder with a deadly weapon over Shakur’s death in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas on 7 September 1996.

Prosecutors said Davis did not fire the gun, but was the ringleader of the group responsible for the killing. They argued that he ordered the shooting and supplied the gun. Davis admitted in his memoir that he had provided the weapon used in the crime. He told Judge Carli Kierny that he would appeal the verdict, saying: “I’m good. I’m gonna appeal this case for sure.”

During sentencing, prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo said Davis had spent years “publicly grandstanding” and bragging about his role in Shakur’s death, which had “wide-ranging effects upon the world”. Judge Kierny told Davis: “You don’t get to take a man from his family.” She added that Shakur’s family and the world had not forgotten him or his death.

Shakur’s sister, Sekyiwa Shakur, told the court that his loss had “crippled” her family for a long time. She said her brother had hoped to help his local community and asked for the maximum sentence. His brother, Maurice Shakur, also asked the judge for “the longest possible sentence”.

The conviction was the first in a cold case that drew attention from hip-hop fans for nearly 30 years. Key evidence included Davis’s public statements that he was inside the white Cadillac from which the shots were fired. His 2008 police interview and his 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend, were used in the case after a judge allowed the interview to be introduced at trial. Shakur was 25 when he died and had sold more than 75 million records worldwide.