Brahim Déby

Who was Brahim Déby?

Brahim Déby Itno was the son of current Chadian President Idriss Déby.

Brahim attended the University of Ottawa in Canada as a foreign exchange student and graduated in 2004 with a degree in business administration. It is claimed that in 2005, President Déby held a secret meeting in which he expressed his desire to have Brahim succeed him at some point; this reportedly caused a rift in the family.

On May 24, 2006, Brahim Déby was arrested outside a Paris nightclub after getting involved in a brawl. During the fight, an unlicensed semi-automatic pistol fell from his pocket. Police later searched his house and found 375 grams of marijuana. On June 3, 2006, Brahim Déby was given a six-month suspended sentence for drugs and arms possession.

Déby was found dead in his apartment building's parking garage in Courbevoie, a suburb of Paris, on July 2, 2007. Due to the apparently violent nature of his death, French authorities began investigating it as murder. An autopsy indicated that Déby, who was covered in white powder, died due to asphyxiation, probably from the powder, which was thought to have been sprayed from a fire extinguisher found near his body. Déby had a wound on his head, but this was thought to be unrelated to his death.