An Iranian police chief in charge of fighting vice in Tehran was jailed today for reportedly consorting in an underground brothel.

Local media reported that General Reza Zarei was jailed after being caught with six naked women at a prostitution den in the Iranian capital.

Ali Reza Jamshidi, a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, confirmed today that Mr Zarei had been taken to jail. He refused to elaborate further about the case, however, saying it was now “in the legal stage.”

But officials, speaking anonymously, have supported the allegations, which have been extensively reported in recent weeks.

Prostitution is illegal in Iran and even talking about sex is frowned upon by the hard-line clerics ruling the country. The order to raid the alleged brothel was reportedly given directly by Iran’s Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi.

Mr Zarei was in charge of a program to clean cities from corruption and in recent months had reported arrests of young men and women for illicit relationships and not respecting the Islamic dress code.

State media in recent weeks reported Mr Zarei’s replacement but made no mention of his arrest or the reasons that led to his detention.

Iran’s strict Islamic rules allow little socialising between the sexes, and young Iranians have been jailed and flogged for dancing together at birthday parties.

Under Iranian law prostitution is punishable by death. But in the past decade, prostitutes are becoming more visible on Iranian streets, mainly due to economic hardships.

The rise in prostitution has led to suggestions that brothels be legalised and monitored. Some Iranians say brothels could be run according to Islamic rules, perhaps under the Shiite Muslim tradition which allows men and women to enter into “temporary marriages”, sometimes for less than 24 hours.

Most clerics, though, maintain that sex outside marriage can never be condoned by Islam. After the 1979 revolution, clerics destroyed brothels as un-Islamic and corrupting.

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