Police examine the scene of October 4's grenade blast in which a Kurdish national was killed.

A cache of heavy weaponry has been found in the basement apartment in Thessaloniki where a Kurdish man was killed in a grenade explosion on Tuesday, police said on Thursday.

The 32-year-old Kurdish national was killed when a handgrenade he was holding exploded in an apartment in Triandria, Thessaloniki, on Tuesday night.

The man, who is believed to have been connected with armed Kurdish organisations, had submitted an application for political asylum in March 2010 in Athens, and had been living in Thessaloniki since April that same year.

A search of the ruins of the apartment turned up heavy weaponry and explosives, which are being examined by police.

The weaponry, which was hidden in a secret compartment in the apartment's kitchen, included an Eastern European-made anti-tank weapon armed with a 64mm M80 shell, a Kalashnikov submachine gun with four rounds, a Scorpion submachine gun, an AK machine gun, an older model machine gun, ammunition of various sizes, 14 handgrenade detonators, six handgrenades, two anti-personnel mines and 5kg of an unidentified powder believed to be dynamite.

The investigation has been undertaken by police counter-terrorism officers from Athens. Indicative is the fact that Citizen Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis on Wednesday night called an emergency meeting with the heads of the Greek Police and National Intelligence Service (EYP).

Counter-terrorism police are also examining a prospective connection with a 42-year-old Turkish woman arrested in early July in Thessaloniki, who is believed to be a member of the European division of the Revolutionary Peoples' Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), which is outlawed in Turkey. The woman was arrested on a warrant from the German authorities.

Earlier in the week the Supreme Court (Areios Pagos) ruled in favour of the woman's extradition to Germany on condition that she is not extradited to Turkey or any other country.

The woman, who has petitioned for asylum in Greece, is being held at the Diavata prison in Thessaloniki until a ruling on her asylum request.

The explosion occurred shortly after 11pm on Tuesday night in a basement apartment of a three-storey building in Triandria, and the dismembered body of the Kurd was found in the ruins.

Police later said that the explosion came from a handgrenade that the man had possibly been examining at the time.

The explosion caused damage to neighbouring buildings and construction sites, as well as to cars parked in the vicinity.

The other residents of the apartment building have been banned from entering the damaged building and are being temporarily hosted by friends and relatives. After completion of the police investigation, the structure will be examined by building inspectors before the residents are allowed to return.