Defendant in rapper Tupac Shakur killing appears in court

The man accused of murder in connection with the gang-feud slaying of rapper Tupac Shakur a quarter of a century ago appeared in a US court Wednesday.

Duane "Keefe D" Davis, 60, was charged last week over the killing, despite not being the man wielding the weapon in Las Vegas in 1996.

Davis was brought into court in handcuffs and wearing blue detention center clothes, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.

The formal arraignment was delayed and Davis did not enter a plea to the charge of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang.

Davis has long acknowledged his involvement in the slaying, boasting he was the "on-site commander" in the effort to kill Shakur and Death Row Records boss Marion "Suge" Knight in revenge for an assault on his nephew.

Under Nevada law, anyone who aids or abets a murder can be charged with the killing, in the same way that a getaway driver can be charged with bank robbery even if he never entered the bank.

Shakur, the best-selling hip-hop artist behind hits such as "California Love," "Changes," and "Dear Mama," was already a huge star in the world of rap when he was gunned down on September 7, 1996. He was just 25.

He was signed to Death Row Records, an outfit associated at the time with Los Angeles street gang Mob Piru, which had a long-standing beef with the South Side Compton Crips - an outfit in which Davis was a key figure.

Prosecutors said last week that what happened on the night of the killing had been largely understood for many years, but they had not had sufficient admissible evidence to advance the case.

That began to change when Davis, reportedly the only person in the car that night still alive, published an autobiography and spoke about the crime for a TV show.