Story highlights
NEW: Magazines in Denmark and Sweden publish photos despite legal controversy
Closer magazine, the first to publish the photos, won't say if it obeyed a court order
Catherine and Prince William got an injunction in France on Tuesday
The royals have also filed a criminal complaint in France
Scandanavian readers can view the topless photos of Britain’s likely future queen, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, as magazines in in Denmark and Sweden have bought the controversial images, editors confirmed to CNN.
Sweden’s Se och Hoer magazine printed them over the weekend, while its sister publication in Denmark, Se Og Hor, will publish them Thursday, the editors said Wednesday.
The photographs will be the same ones that appeared in the French magazine Closer last week and in the Italian magazine Chi on Monday, Se Og Hor editor Kim Henningsen said.
“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,” Henningsen said. “If the British royal family want to sue us, then it will happen then and we’ll deal with it.”
Se och Hoer editor Carina Loefkvist would not discuss the identity of the photographer, but she did say her magazine bought the images Friday.
The criminal and civil legal battle over the photographs would not deter the magazine, she said.
“We don’t treat royalties different to other celebrities, so we would have published the photos anyway,” she said. “We valued the news value.”
A spokesman for the royal family declined to comment on the Danish and Swedish magazines’ decisions “save to say that all proportionate responses will be kept under review.”
Closer was fined Tuesday for publishing the topless photographs, and ordered not to distribute the magazine in print or online.
A French court ordered the magazine to hand over the original photos to the royal family within 24 hours of the ruling and to pay them 2,000 euros (about $2,600).
The magazine must pay a further 10,000 euros a day if it is late in handing over the photos.
An employee at the magazine refused to say Wednesday whether it had complied with the order.
“We don’t communicate with the press,” said the woman, who refused to give her name but identified herself as an assistant to the editor.
A French prosecutor opened a preliminary criminal investigation into the incident, the Nanterre prosecutor’s office said Tuesday.
Wolf: The backward view of women’s bodies
Catherine and her husband, Prince William, the second in line to the throne, “welcome the injunction that’s been granted. They always believed the law was broken and that they were entitled to their privacy,” the palace said.
French law provides for “draconian sanctions” to protect against invasions of privacy, British lawyer Charlotte Harris said, including orders to take magazines off shelves and the imposition of serious fines.
Separately, the board of a newspaper that published the topless photos is conducting an internal investigation. The board of the Irish Daily Star was considering shutting down the newspaper but decided to await the investigation results, which are expected in “a few weeks.”
After the Irish Daily Star published the photos Saturday, one of the newspaper’s editors was suspended, pending the investigation.
The royal family filed a criminal complaint seeking invasion of privacy charges against Closer and possibly the photographer, a palace spokeswoman said.
William and Kate: Keeping calm and carrying on
Chi and Closer are owned by the Mondadori publishing company, which is headed by Marina Berlusconi, daughter of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Opinion: Wake up, Kate; photogs are always watching
CNN’s Max Foster contributed to this report.