THE rap superstar 50 Cent squirmed and fought off bullets with his hands after hitmen tried to kill him in a now-legendary shooting featured in his new film Get Rich or Die Tryin’.

Fresh details of the attack, which took place in May 2000, were revealed in dramatic testimony by a self-confessed pimp in the New York trial of Irv and Chris Lorenzo, the so-called Gotti Brothers, who founded the “gangsta rap” label Murder Inc.

The new testimony showed that prosecutors believe a local drug baron was behind the unsolved shooting of 50 Cent, the son of a murdered drug-dealer, who rose to become one of rap music’s biggest stars.

The shooting has conferred near-mythical status on the rapper, who survived being shot nine times at close range as he sat in his car outside his grandmother’s house in the Queens district of New York.

The shooting came up in the “Gotti Brothers’” money-laundering trial because prosecutors are trying to show the link between the “gangsta rap” impresarios and named Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff, the head of a crack cocaine ring, who is accused of pumping drug money into the the record label.

The judge allowed Jon Ragin, a self-confessed pimp who is now in the witness protection programme after pleading guilty to $1 million in credit card fraud, to be cross-examined before him. But he put off a decision about whether the witness would be allowed to testify in front of the jury.

Ragin, who produced a direct-to-DVD film called Crime Partners with Supreme, said the drug baron called him and went to his Brooklyn garage with two other members of the alleged hit team immediately after the shooting.

“Supreme said, ‘I got him’,” Ragin said. “I didn’t know who it was he got, and Supreme explained he got 50 Cent.”

“He thought he was dead,” Ragin explained. “He got shot so many times at close range and there was so much blood.”

The suspected gunman, who goes by the street-name “Son”, rinsed his hands with rubbing alcohol to remove the gunshot residue, he said.

Ragin said he had discussed 50 Cent with Supreme on several occasions. The drug baron was annoyed that 50 Cent was disparaging about Murder Inc’s star Ja Rule in his songs, he said.

Supreme had several meetings with the rising rapper to tell him to stop targeting Murder Inc’s artists, but 50 Cent always broke his promise to lay off them, Ragin said.

Although Supreme is now awaiting trial on multiple murder charges, no one has ever been charged for the shooting of 50 Cent. The rapper himself has blamed the attack on a local thug named Darryl “Homicide” Baum, who was murdered three weeks later. But prosecutors suggest it is safer for him to point a finger at a dead man.

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