A French court on Tuesday ordered a magazine to pay 100,000 euros (119,370 U.S. dollars) in damages to Kate Middleton, wife of Prince William of Britain, for publishing photos showing her bare breasts in 2012.
In addition, the editorial director and an editor of the celebrity gossip magazine Closer were each handed down a maximum fine of 45,000 euros (53,716.5 U.S. dollars), while the two photographers suspected of taking those photos were fined 10,000 euros (11,937 U.S. dollars), with half of the amount suspended.
All four defendants were found guilty of violating privacy of the royal couple by the criminal court of Nanterre in the western suburbs of Paris.
The photos, which caused a public outrage in Britain when they were published on Sept. 14, 2012, were taken in secret during the couple's trip to a rented private property in the Luberon, south France.
The couple filed a lawsuit against the magazine soon after the publication.
At a hearing in early May, they demanded through their lawyer 1.5 million euros (1.79 million U.S. dollars) in compensation.
The couple said that the "grotesque and totally unjustifiable" violation of privacy reminded them of the tragedy of Prince William's mother, Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997 while being chased by the paparazzi.
The lawyer of the magazine told French media that the ruling was "consistent with the law," but the fine was "exaggerated" for the matter of privacy violation.
