The brother of the Togolese president has been detained as he sought refuge from an arrest warrant in the US embassy, the government says. Kpatcha Gnassingbe has denied accusations that he was plotting a coup against his brother, Faure. At least two people were killed and three wounded in a shootout at his house on Sunday night, officials say. But Kpatcha Gnassingbe, a former defence minister, said he was the victim of an assassination attempt. He has told the BBC that armed men in military uniform had turned up at his home spraying bullets at his bedroom and the bedrooms of his children during the gun battle, which lasted at least three hours. The government website said Kpatcha Gnassingbe was one of the main organisers of a plot to topple the government. Five senior army officers have already been arrested. Speculation swirling President Faure Gnassingbe, who was elected in 2005 during a vote which observers said was flawed, cancelled a trip to China on Sunday after the shootout. He became president after the death of his father, Togo's veteran leader Gnassingbe Eyadema in 2005. The BBC's Ebow Godwin in the capital, Lome, says many Togolese are not surprised by the latest twist in the Gnassingbe family drama. Speculation has been swirling for more than a year now that Kpatcha Gnassingbe was not on good terms with the president. Our correspondent says relations between the two went cold when the president sacked his brother as defence minister during a cabinet reshuffle without explanation in 2007. He adds that the family feud risks introducing an ethnic dimension between the two half brothers as the president's mother is from the Ewe group in southern Togo, while his sibling's mother is from the Kabye people in the north. Source: BBC