Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad In Hot Seat Over Sin

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comforts the mother of Hugo Chavez. (Miraflores Press Office/AP)

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is on the hot seat from Iran's clerics concerning a photo of him consoling the mother of Hugo Chavez at the late Venezuelan leader's funeral—physical contact that's considered a sin under Iran's strict Islamic codes.

Released by Venezuela's Miraflores Press Office, the picture shows Elena Frías' and Ahmadinejad holding each other closely as they stood over Chavez's body.

Tehran's religious conservatives. “No unrelated women can be touched unless she is drowning at sea or needs medical treatment," Hojat al-Islam Hossein Ibrahimi, a cleric at the Society of Militant Clergy, said, according to Iran's Al-Monitor.