WASHINGTON — A British volunteer for the potential presidential campaign of former Virginia Governor Mark Warner was killed in the city’s Georgetown neighborhood by robbers who slashed his throat and tried to rape his female companion, police said.

Within three hours of the attack Sunday, police arrested and charged two men, and two other suspects surrendered a few hours later. The four suspects, including a 15-year-old boy, were due in court yesterday afternoon.

Three assailants stabbed Alan Senitt and slashed his throat as the 27-year-old and his companion returned home from a movie, police said.

Senitt, who was active in Jewish causes, had moved to Washington last month to volunteer for the Democratic former governor and to study political fund-raising.

“Our entire team is shocked and heartbroken,” Mr. Warner said in a statement.

Senitt had joined Mr. Warner’s PAC, Forward Together, on June 19 as one of about 20 unpaid interns, said Ellen Qualls, a spokeswoman for Mr. Warner. “He wanted to work on our finance team and learn fund-raising and donor relations.”

He had worked for Greville Janner, a member of Britain’s House of Lords from Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labor Party. He also was twice elected head of the Union of Jewish Students, which represents 5,000 college students in Britain, and ran unsuccessfully for a council seat in a London neighborhood.

“He was a serious contender for mainstream political life,” said Danny Stone, a friend who leads the Co-Existence Trust, a group founded by Mr. Janner to promote Muslim-Jewish understanding. “He was up and coming. He would have been brilliant.”

Mr. Janner, vice president of the World Jewish Congress, said he had worked with Senitt for the past year and found him “very bright, very hard working.”

“He was a delight to work with and this is a terrible tragedy to a young man reaching his prime. He was an outstanding young man,” Mr. Janner said.

Three men approached the couple with a gun and a knife, demanding money and valuables, investigators said. One man grabbed the woman and dragged her down a driveway where he tried to pull off her clothes, said Lieutenant Robert Glover.

Two others attacked Senitt.

Investigators were looking for possible links to other crimes in the city.

Christopher Piper, 25, was charged with felony murder and attempted sexual assault, authorities said. Jeffery Rice, 22, Olivia Miles, 26, and a 15-year-old boy also face murder charges. Police did not identify the boy because he was charged as a juvenile.

Senitt’s family issued a statement mourning his loss.

“The Jewish community as a whole has lost one of its bright young leaders, and the wider world has lost a champion of peace and goodwill,” the statement said.

Britain’s Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks mourned the death of “a wonderful young man, a natural leader, and one of the most impressive individuals to have emerged from our student community in recent years.”