By ALLAN HALL

Last updated at 13:09 20 November 2007

The world's most infamous cannibal has become a vegetarian.

Armin Meiwes - he killed, filleted, froze and ate a man he met over the Internet in Germany - is also the jailhouse leader of an environmental group in the prison where he is serving life for his crime.

Meiwes, 45, who said in a book about himslef that human flesh tasted of pork, was voted to head up the Green Party section in the maximum security jail in Kassel where he is serving his sentence three months ago.

The group is made up of murderers, paedophiles and drug dealers and now has a cannibal as its leader.

Meeting every Tuesday, the group discusses tax, legal and environmental policies.

Gerhard Kaehler, a Green party representative working with the convicts says that "Armin is no fool.

"He can write and speak well. The group respects him, that is why he was voted as leader".

Bavaria Radio reported that another inmate said Meiwes has sworn off meat in his new role as an enviornmentalist.

"He finds the idea of factory farming as distasteful as his crime was," said the convict.

"He now sticks to vegetarian dishes."

The self-confessed cannibal was found guilty of manslaughter by a German court and jailed for eight years and six months.

He confessed at the state court in Kassel to killing, dismembering and eating another man who he met over the internet.

Scroll down for more...

When his trial opened in 2004 Meiwes confessed in detail to the March 2001 killing of 43-year-old Bernd Juergen Brandes at his home in the nearby town of Rotenburg.

The verdict fell short of the murder conviction sought by prosecutors, who had argued Armin Meiwes had killed the Berlin-based computer engineer for sexual pleasure.

Police tracked down and arrested Meiwes in December 2002 after a student in Austria alerted them to a message Meiwes had posted on the internet seeking a man willing to be killed and eaten.

But although Meiwes claims to be a reformed character - he said in the book "Conversations with a Cannibal" that he advises people not to copy him - the official Green Party in Germany wants nothing to do with him.

Scroll down for more...

Party official Kai Klose said: "Mr. Meiwes never was and is not a member of the party", and that he has no voting rights nor financial obligations to the party.

Kaehler admits that results of the Tuesday discussions sometimes find their way into party work and that this has resulted in questions being raised in the regional parliament.

Yet he added: "To me he is a normal convict who has committed an incomprehensible crime".