A senior member of Libya’s Fatwa Committee and part of a delegation that visited Brazil, Sheikh Abdulrahman Qadoua, has raised serious concerns over the credibility of Brazil’s halal meat certification, saying that it is issued without proper oversight.
“During my visit to Brazil, I found that access to slaughterhouses is only permitted after prior coordination with them—meaning they choose the day and prepare accordingly,” Sheikh Qadoua said.
He warned that Brazil exports 47 tonnes of meat globally, some of which is labeled halal while the rest is not, stressing that there are no guarantees against the mixing of halal and non-halal products.
Sheikh Qadoua emphasized the absence of effective supervision at Brazilian slaughterhouses, noting that in some cases, a single inspector is assigned to oversee four facilities, with hundreds of kilometers between them.
He insisted that proper monitoring should include the entire process—from the moment of slaughter until the meat is sealed in containers—which, he said, is currently not being done.
To illustrate the consequences of this lack of oversight, Qadoua cited several troubling incidents: a shipment of chicken laced with heroin intercepted in Libya, and a pork consignment exported to the UAE bearing a halal stamp. He also referenced a 2012 case in which Kuwait’s Ministry of Health discovered chicken sausages imported from Brazil that were mixed with pork meat and fat.
In a related statement, Libya’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Sadiq Al-Ghariani announced in March that meat imported from Brazil is slaughtered in ways that violate Islamic law, rendering it impermissible for consumption.
Al-Ghariani explained that the Libyan Dar al-Ifta (Fatwa House) had commissioned a 15-day investigation by a delegation from the Research Council to Brazil to examine slaughtering practices. The findings concluded that the procedures do not comply with Islamic guidelines.
As a result, the committee proposed two possible solutions to safeguard the integrity of meat in the Libyan market: either dispatch a Libyan team to oversee and verify the halal slaughtering process in Brazil, or import live animals to be slaughtered locally within Libya’s free market under proper supervision.
The Grand Mufti affirmed that these recommendations are intended to protect consumers from consuming meat that does not meet Islamic standards and urged relevant authorities to implement the necessary measures to ensure the availability of halal-certified meat in Libya.
