Three men were accused of planning terrorist attacks during the NATO summit in Chicago, where world leaders including US President Barack Obama are scheduled to gather beginning Sunday, the county prosecutor said.
“Brian Church, Jared Chase and Brent Betterly were charged overnight with criminal acts relating to terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possession of explosives,” Anita Alvarez, the Cook County, Illinois, state’s attorney, said today in a statement.
Chicago, the third-biggest US city, is hosting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit Sunday and May 21, amid heightened security measures in the downtown business district and at a nearby convention center, where Obama and representatives from NATO’s 28 member nations will convene.
The men were accused of making Molotov cocktails to hurl at the president’s re-election campaign headquarters in Chicago, at the home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff, and at financial institutions and police stations, according to a statement issued by Alvarez and Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.