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Danish magazine to print topless Kate photos

Posted at 9:14 AM, Sep 19, 2012
and last updated 2012-09-19 09:14:45-04

(CNN) — A Danish magazine plans to print topless photos of Britain’s likely future queen, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Se Og Hor editor Kim Henningsen said Wednesday, promising the edition Thursday.

The photographs will be the same ones that appeared in the French magazine Closer and the Italian magazine Chi last week, he 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,” he said. “If the British royal family want to sue us, then it will happen then and we’ll deal with it.”

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.

And a French prosecutor opened a preliminary criminal investigation into the incident, the Nanterre prosecutor’s office said Tuesday.

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.

Chi and Closer are owned by the Mondadori publishing company, which is headed by Marina Berlusconi, daughter of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

CNN’s Max Foster contributed to this report.

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