Nairobi  - George Obama, the Kenyan half-brother of President Barack Obama, is to face no charges after he was arrested in a weekend drug raid, police said Monday.

"He was caught along with some other young people, one of them in possession of cannabis," Kenyan Police Spokesman Eric Kiraithe told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "They were interrogated by police, but it is a minor offence."

George Obama was arrested on Saturday in the Kenyan slum of Huruma, where he says he is active in youth groups and is training to be a mechanic.

His story created a stir last August when the Italian edition of Vanity Fair tracked him down and claimed he was living on less than a dollar a day.

US conservatives then tried to use the reports to attack Barack Obama during his election campaign.

The two men share the same father, Barack Obama Sr, although neither of them knew their father well.

Barack Obama Sr left when his American son was only a toddler, going on to father George Obama two decades later. He died in a car crash in 1983 when George was only 6 months old.

President Obama is seen as a hero in Kenya, where many of his extended family still live in the tiny western village of Kogelo.

However, he has only visited the East African nation a handful of times. (dpa)