Stall owners at the KDT shopping centre in downtown Warsaw have been allowed to collect their stock and to close down their trading posts, following two days of clashes with police.

Violence accompanied protests this week after the market traders were ordered out of the premises so the shopping centre could be demolished to make way for an art museum and green space.

Under guarded police supervision, traders are being allowed in one by one with an accompanying person at hourly intervals. A special team of workers on the premises has been hired to take down shelving and help stall owners pack up their belongings, lock stock.

Coordinators of the proceedings estimate that around ten traders will be allowed into the KDT centre today to move out.

There are around 600 stalls in the KDT shopping centre. 100 of them were closed down voluntarily before violent protests took place last Tuesday.

The KDT was to have been disbanded on 31 December 2008, when the lease contract expired, but sellers refuse to budge until an alternative location in the city’s western district of Wola, is fully built in 2011.

A city court ruled against the traders and on 21 July the city authorities decided to remove the traders from the building by force.

Warsaw City Hall is closing down the KDT market in order to build a new Centre for Modern Art, on Plac Defilad under the Palace of Culture and Science and increase green space in the city centre.  (jb/mg/pg)`