Cairo donkey butchers caught in the act

Ugh. This reminds me of the time my crazy galpal and I went into a Halal butcher shop when I lived back in New Jersey. It was not too long after 9/11 and we just wanted to conduct our own little outreach. Oh my God, it stunk so bad. The air reeked of the smell of blood - and shit. God, I can practically make myself gag just thinking about it again. Not only did the place look filthy dirty, we got some filthy dirty looks from the men in the shop. We loitered as long as we could stand it just to piss them off. The Butchers of Halal were not amused.

Two Cairo butchers have been arrested for allegedly passing off donkey, cat and dog carcasses as beef, a security official told AFP yesterday. Mohammed Mahmud Khalifa, 35, was caught red-handed as he butchered a donkey he had found by the roadside in a street in the densely packed Cairo district of Bulaq-Dakrur, the official said. He confessed to collecting carcasses from around Cairo and selling their meat to Wasfi Sawiris, 53, for five Egyptian pounds (less than a dollar) a kilo (around two pounds), a tenth of the normal price for beef.

Sawiris then allegedly ground the meat up with spices to disguise the taste before selling it to local restaurants. It was not clear how long the men had been plying their illegal trade. More than 1,700 kilos of meat was found in Sawiris's shop, mostly donkey but also including cat, dog and horse meat.

Under Islamic law it is forbidden to eat the meat of any carnivore or of any animal that has not been slaughtered in the traditional way. Rampant inflation has hit the cost of food staples in Egypt in recent months, making meat even less accessible for the poor. Around 40 percent of Egyptians live on or near the poverty line of two dollars a day, according to the World Bank.

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