Mutulu Shakur, Tupac Shakur's stepfather, has been incarcerated for more than 35 years. The elder Shakur, now 71, is facing a rare form of blood cancer that his doctors say is incurable; and advocates are fighting so that he doesn't spend his last days behind bars.

Shakur is suffering from stage-3 multiple myeloma, a  blood cancer that affects the bones and kidneys. And his attorney, Brad Thomson has explained that doctors with the Federal Bureau of Prisons gave Shakur less than six months to live in May.

“His health situation is extremely dire right now. He’s very much on an end-of-life trajectory. We’re looking at a matter of months at the most but, realistically, it could be a matter of days or weeks,” Thomson told NBC News. “At this point, the issue is getting him released so he can say goodbye to his loved ones, his family, his children, and grandchildren. To be surrounded by loved ones, so he can die in dignity, peace and comfort outside of prison.”

Shakur is currently serving a 60-year sentence, which stems from a 1988 conviction for conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO Act, bank robbery, armed bank robbery and bank robbery murder. Shakur was convicted of being the leader in a string of armed robberies in New York and Connecticut, which includes one that left three people dead. He was also convicted of helping JoAnne Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, escape from a New Jersey prison in 1979.

Advocates have argued that Shakur is a political prisoner, and his conviction and incarceration are the results of his affilations with Black Nationalist groups like the Revolutionary Action Movement. According to Thomsen, Shakur was diagnosed with myeloma in 2019; his legal team requested his “compassionate release” in May 2020, which U.S. District Judge Charles Haight Jr. denied in November 2020. 

“Should it develop that Shakur’s condition deteriorates further, to the point of approaching death, he may apply again to the Court, for a release that in those circumstances could be justified as ‘compassionate,’” Haight said in the ruling obtained by NBC News.