Despite a victorious injunction lawsuit against French magazine, Closer, topless photos of Britain's Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton have been published in Sweden and are expected to be published in Denmark later this week.
According to the BBC, Swedish celebrity magazine 'Se och Hoer' published a three-page spread with 11 pictures of the Duchess, including one which shows her removing her bikini bottom. The Danish edition of the magazine also announced that it plans to publish the photos in its Thursday edition.
Carina Loefkvist, editor-in-chief of the Swedish magazine, told the BBC, "This is nothing unusual, these are quite nice pictures if you compare them with other celebrity pictures that we publish all the time."
Loefkvist's Danish counterpart, Kim Henningsen told CNN, "It's a set of unique photos from an A-class celebrity. We are a leading gossip magazine in Denmark, and it is my job to publish them. If the British royal family wants to sue us, then it will happen then and we'll deal with it."
The scandalous photos were first published by French magazine, Closer, and later published by Ireland's Irish Daily Star and Italy's Chi.
A court decision on Tuesday ordered Closer to return the photographs to the Duchess and her husband, Prince William, within 24 hours. The magazine was also fined $13,000 every time it republished or distributed the images. During the ruling, the court said, "These snapshots which showed the intimacy of a couple, partially naked on the terrace of a private home, surrounded by a park several hundred meters from a public road, and being able to legitimately assume that they are protected from passers-by, are by nature particularly intrusive."
French police raided the magazine's office in Paris on Wednesday searching for the identity of the photographer who took the photos. The raid was later denied by Marie-Christine Daubigney, assistant prosecutor for the Nanterre court, the BBC reported.
The photos, which were taken earlier this month while the Duke and Duchess were vacationing in a secluded chateau in the south of France, were republished in the Irish Daily Star a day after appearing in Closer. Owners of the paper have since apologized for the photos and have suspended the editor, Michael O'Kane.
Italian gossip magazine Chi, which, like Closer, is owned by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's publishing house Mondadori, published a 26-page photo spread on Monday under the headline, "Court Scandal: The Queen is Nude."
The recent publications in the Swedish and Danish magazines caused St. James's Palace to announce that "proportionate responses were under review," the BBC reported. "As we've said, we will not be commenting on potential legal action concerning the alleged intended publication of the photos save to say that all proportionate responses will be kept under review," the Palace said.
The Duke and Duchess found out about the publications of the photos while out on a royal tour of South Asia to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee. The photos come about a month after naked photos surfaced of Prince Harry in Las Vegas.
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