Travelling man nabbed for carrying 400 grams of TNT in Austria

Austrian police have relieved a German man of nearly half a kilogram of explosives that he says he found on his travels through Europe.

An employee at a petrol station in central Vienna alerted officers on Friday after the 54-year-old from Frankfurt had told her about his possession, police said.

Numerous police as well as sniffer dogs were deployed to the scene, where the man was detained and his 400 grams of TNT seized, along with a military cartridge and a knife.

"He handed it over voluntarily," a police spokesman told dpa on Saturday, adding that "this is not related to terrorism in any way."

The suspect did not possess any ignition equipment to detonate the material, according to the spokesman.

The man told police that he left Germany in 2008 and has been roving Europe by bike ever since. He said he had found the block of explosives on a military training range in Slovakia.

Although the travelling man was let free, he now faces charges of illegally possessing and importing war materials.