Dallying with one hooker when you’re the chief law enforcement officer of your jurisdiction? Disgraceful. Dallying with six hookers? Darned impressive. This story’s actually a few weeks old but it was swallowed up by Spitzergate in the U.S. and seemed just dubious enough to qualify as apocryphal — until now. Say this much for the guy: The Shiite fanatic’s way of dealing with his urges sure seems a lot healthier than the Sunni’s.

How did today become fundamentalist sexcapades day on HA, anyway?

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…

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…

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.

Obligatory exit question with all Iranian scandals: Might the charges here have been trumped up as a pretext to destroy a political enemy? Exit answer: With all the crimes and taboos available under shari’a with which to smear Zarei, is accusing him of scoring a menage a sept really the way to go?