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Three white supremacists with a sniper rifle and high on drugs who were arrested near the Democratic convention in Denver will not face charges even though officials believe that they wanted to assassinate Barack Obama.

The FBI and the US Secret Service carried out an “intensive” investigation into the plot — in which the supremacists talked of shooting Mr Obama as he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in an open-air sports stadium on Thursday night — but found insufficient evidence of a “true threat”.

One of the suspects, Shawn Adolph, 33, was connected to a high-velocity Ruger sniper rifle seized during a series of early morning arrests on Monday and had made clear threats and “racial slurs” against Mr Obama, Troy Eid, Denver’s US district attorney said.

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The spectre of assassination arose in May when Hillary Clinton had to apologise after appearing to suggest that the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968 during his presidential campaign was a good reason for her staying in the race. Mr Obama is often compared to John F. Kennedy. But it is his skin colour that has added to concerns in a country that has more than 200 million legally held firearms and 30,000 gun deaths each year.

Mr Eid said: “It is a serious federal crime to make a threat against a presidential candidate.” But he added that the three men arrested in connection with the plot had been abusing the drug methamphetamine when they discussed the possibility of killing Mr Obama.

“From a legal standpoint, the law recognises a difference between between a true threat and the racist rantings of drug abusers,” Mr Eid said. “The alleged threat does not warrant charges at this time but we are keeping an open mind.”

The three men — Mr Adolph, his cousin Tharin Gartrell, 28, and Nathan Johnson, 32, have long criminal records for illegal gun possession, drug dealing and theft. There were multiple outstanding warrants for their arrest and all three were being held on drug and firearms charges last night.

The alleged plot received serious attention after an extraordinary jail-cell interview with local television by Mr Johnson, who said that his associates had planned to assassinate Mr Obama as he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in the 75,000-seat open air Invesco sports stadium on Thursday.

Mr Johnson also told police that the plan had been to shoot Mr Obama “from a high vantage point using a rifle sighted at 750 yards”.

The Democratic candidate has been under Secret Service protection since May last year after a series of credible death threats. The plot comes at a time of heightened security fears in Denver, and an unspoken fear inside the Obama campaign about the candidate’s safety.

A recent Gallup poll revealed that nearly two thirds of blacks in the US believe Mr Obama faces greater security risks than other candidates.

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