Fur real? Tunisian shawarma joint accused of serving up cat meat sandwiches

Fur real? Tunisian shawarma joint accused of serving up cat meat sandwiches
EEEEK! A report has emerged from Tunisia that a popular restaurant may have been caught red-handed serving up its customers a little more to bite on than they expected.
2 min read
13 Sep, 2017
File Photo: Cat meat is forbidden in Islamic dietary law [Getty]

A report has emerged from Tunisia that a popular restaurant may have been caught red-handed serving up its customers a little more to bite on than they expected.

Local daily Al Chourouk on Wednesday accused a restaurant in the capital Tunis' al-Manar district of dishing up cat meat in its shawarma, sparking an investigation by health officials.

"A bag filled with severed cat heads was found in the restaurant's storeroom," the daily said.

It quoted an unnamed source as saying that police had received information that the restaurant was using cat meat to prepare its kebabs.

"When authorities tried to open an investigation into the restaurant's owner, a foreign ambassador intervened to protect the suspect because he is a foreigner who has been living in Tunisia for many years," the source claimed.

Tunisian authorities have said the newspaper's claims have "yet to be confirmed".

"Just because there was a bag filled with cat heads in the storeroom does not mean it was used to make the food," Ministry of Health official, Mohammed al-Rabhi, told local media.

"[Shawarma] cannot be made using cat meat," Rabhi explained.

He added that health inspectors would visit the restaurant to inspect the eatery.

Cat meat is forbidden in Islamic dietary law, but that does not stop reports regularly emerging from the Middle East of unscrupulous vendors trying to pass it off to unwitting customers.

Earlier this year, an Egyptian veterinarian told The New Arab that cat and donkey meat was repeatedly being found being sold under false labelling in Egypt.

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