Chadian President Idriss Deby's son Brahim, touted as a possible successor, was found dead near his home outside Paris on Monday and police launched a murder investigation, French police and court officials said.
Brahim Deby's body was found early on Monday by a caretaker in the underground parking lot of a building where he lived in Courbevoie, to the west of Paris. He had a wound to the head. "He clearly died a violent death," a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office in the western suburb of Nanterre said. "We are going on the hypothesis of murder but the Nanterre prosecutor's office cannot say what the cause of death was and when it occurred."
She said an autopsy would be conducted by Tuesday. Brahim Deby was seen as his father's choice of successor but was widely disliked even by some of his own family who viewed him as unfit to govern, causing a split within the ruling clan.
The president sacked Brahim as his adviser in June 2006 after the then 27-year-old was arrested in a Paris discotheque for possessing an illegal firearm and drugs. He was given a six-month suspended sentence by a French court.