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Egyptian police

arrest three in

donkey meat scam

ASSIUT: Police in southern Egypt have arrested three men for buying dead donkeys and selling the meat as beef, security sources said on Saturday.

News of the scam has hit the meat market in the southern city of Assiut just as it prepared for the Moslem feast of Eid al-Adha, when demand for meat usually peaks, butchers said.

Police caught the men, a father and his two sons, as they were skinning a donkey at home, the sources said. At first they denied it was donkey but they confessed when police found a severed donkey head nearby, they added.

Moslem clerics say Moslems should not eat donkey meat.

The men had been selling the meat at between seven and 10 pounds ($2 and $3) a kg, about half the market price of beef, and telling their customers it was from old cows.

Butchers in Assiut said they slaughtered 139 cattle on Friday but could only sell 10 percent of the meat. They have had to cut their prices to 10 pounds a kg.-Reuter