Man tries to jump on jeep carrying Pope

VATICAN CITY, June 6 (Reuters) A man leaped over a barricade during Pope Benedict's weekly audience today and tried to jump on to his moving, open-topped popemobile but was stopped by guards.

It was the first serious security breach in the Vatican regarding Benedict since he was elected in April 2005. The man took the Pope's bodyguards by surprise and managed to get to within about a metre of the Pope.

Vatican sources said the man was unarmed and did not appear to have posed a threat to the Pope, who was not aware of what was happening behind him.

Television pictures showed a man wearing a baseball cap and short pants jump out of the crowd and over a wooden barricade in St Peter's Square as the Pope passed by on the jeep to start his weekly general audience for some 40,000 people.

Hurtling from the Pope's right, he tried to jump on the back of the moving popemobile but only managed to touch it before being wrestled to the ground by Vatican security guards.

The Pope was standing on the open jeep facing forward and looking at the crowd to his left and did not see the man trying to get on the vehicle.

The driver did not appear to know what was happening behind him since the speed of the vehicle did not increase.

The episode lasted about 15 seconds.

The man, believed to be between 20 and 30 years old, was taken in for questioning and was due to be handed over to Italian police.

While Vatican guards make initial detentions in St Peter's Square, suspects are routinely handed over to Italian police in line with a special international agreement in force since 1929.

Benedict's predecessor, John Paul, was shot and nearly killed in the same square by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca on May 13, 1981.

REUTERS KN ND1755