Police foil 'racist plot to assassinate Obama'

Three men and a woman have been arrested and FBI and secret service agents are investigating claims that there were plans to use a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight to shoot Mr Obama at the Democratic Party's four-day convention in Denver.

US law enforcement sources said one of the suspects had admitted travelling to Denver to kill the first African-American to be nominated for president.

The shooting was allegedly planned for Thursday, when the White House hopeful will be in the city to formally accept his party's nomination for the November elections.

His speech is due to be made at the 75,000-seat Invesco stadium and the shooting would have been from a distance of at least 750 yards in front of almost 100,000 people.

The alleged plot was thwarted by local traffic police on a routine patrol.

It came to light on Sunday when the officers stopped a pick-up truck driving erratically in Aurora, less than 20 miles from the Democrats' convention venue.

Two high- powered rif les with telescopic sights were found when pol ice searched the rented Dodge truck, which was being driven by 28-year-old Tharin Gartrell.

They also found camouf lage clothing, walkie-talkies, a bulletproof vest, licences in the names of other people and the drug methamphetamine. One of the rifles was listed as stolen from Kansas.

Police then went to Gartrell's room at the Cherry Creek Hotel in Aurora to arrest a second man. As officers closed in, the man - said to be 33-year-old Shawn Robert Adolf - jumped from a sixth-floor window, landing on an awning before falling off and breaking his ankle.

Police said he was wearing a ring with a Nazi swastika and had links to Aryan Nation - a white supremacist group classified as a terrorist threat by the FBI.

The men may also have ties to outlawed biker group Sons of Silence.

A third man arrested at another hotel in Denver told police there was a plan to kill Mr Obama when he made his acceptance speech. He has been identified as Nathan Johnson, 32. Adolf and Johnson were today being held on drugs charges.

Newspaper reports in Denver said Johnson's girlfriend Natasha Gromack was also arrested in connection with the alleged plot.

Gartrell has been charged with being a felon in possession of a weapon and methamphetamine. He was being held at the Arapahoe county jail on £27,000 bail and is due in court on Thursday.

Detective Marcus Dudley, of Aurora Police, would not say what tied the men together but said more arrests were possible.

He said federal officials had been alerted because of heightened security surrounding the Democratic convention.

"Clearly we found there are federal implications - otherwise we would not have notified them," he said. " The weapons clearly would cause great concern."

A US government official familiar with the investigation said: "It could also turn out that these were nothing but a bunch of knuckleheads, meth-heads."

Last month a man was arrested in Miami after making threats to assassinate Mr Obama.

Raymond Geisel had reportedly told others at a bail bondsman's class that he wanted to kill the Illinois senator.

Denver authorities were today processing about 100 people who were ar rested when police officers and protesters clashed about a mile from the site of the Democrats' convention.

The confrontation erupted overnight as police in riot gear tried to disperse a crowd of about 300 people that was disrupting traffic near the Denver City and County Building.

Police said they were forced to use pepper spray when members of the crowd, some carrying rocks, rushed a police safety line.

But one protester said officers charged the group without warning.