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WHITE SUPREMACIST GANG ARRESTED OVER PLOT TO KILL OBAMA

OBAMA: Target for extremists

Wednesday August 27,2008

By Martin Evans

POLICE have smashed a plot by white supremacists to assasinate US presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Secret Service agents swooped on four suspects after police stopped a car containing weapons, ammunition and walkie-talkies near the Democratic convention centre in Denver, Colorado.

The group were said to be planning to shoot Obama, who hopes to become America’s first black president, when he speaks to 100,000 people at the convention tomorrow night.

Police were attempting to play down the plot. But it will strike fear into the hearts of many that Senator Obama is a target for extremists.

Police made the first arrest early on Sunday in Aurora, less than 20 miles from Denver, after they spotted 28-year-old Tharin Gartrell who was driving erratically.

Officers found two rifles, ammunition, a bullet-proof vest, camouflage clothing and drugs in his rented Dodge truck.

Less than two hours later, FBI agents arrested 32-year-old Nathan Johnson and his girlfriend. The self-confessed drug addict told them his friends had drawn up a plan to kill Obama, 47.

Agents then arrested a fourth member of the gang, Shawn Robert Adolf, at a hotel in Glendale, Colorado.

As officers approached the 33-year-old, he jumped from a sixth-floor window on to an awning before falling off and breaking his ankle.

He was said to be wearing a swastika ring and be in possession of a number of weapons.

The FBI is investigating possible links between the group and the white supremacist organisation Aryan Nation. Under questioning, Johnson at first first denied any knowledge of a plot to assasinate Obama.

But he then changed his story, claiming his friends intended to shoot him when he arrived to accept the Democratic nomination.

Johnson told officers: “Yeah, they were here to do that, to assassinate him. It’s about as hard for me to swallow as it is for you to understand.”

Asked if he believed Adolf was racist enough to want to kill Obama, Johnson replied: “He made a comment in the past, I can’t honestly tell you how long ago in the past, that he didn’t believe a black should be the leader of this country.” Trying to play down the seriousness of the plot, a spokesman said: “It’s premature to say that it was a valid threat or that these folks have the ability to carry it out.

“It could turn out that these were nothing but a bunch of knuckleheads.”

Obama was not in Denver at the time of the arrests, but his wife Michelle, 44, was speaking at the opening of the convention.

Security around the Illinois senator has become intense since he emerged as the Democrats’ front-runner for the presidency.