Judge halts magazine sales showing Spanish royal sex cartoon

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'El Jueves' cover

A Spanish judge on Friday halted sales of a satirical magazine with a cartoon of Crown Prince Felipe and his wife, Princess Letizia, in an intimate bedroom scene, court officials said.

National Court Judge Juan del Olmo ordered police to withdraw from sale throughout Spain all publications of Jueves (Thursday).

The magazine, published Wednesday, depicted the royal couple on its front cover.

In his ruling, Del Olmo demanded that the magazine's publishers give him the names of the cartoonists and called the drawing "a clearly denigrating act which is objectively defamatory."

The cartoon was about a newly approved measure brought in by President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to boost birth rate in Spain by offering financial assistance worth euro2,500 (US$3,450) to Spanish families for each new child born or adopted.

In the cartoon, Prince Felipe tells his wife: "Do you realize, if you get pregnant this will be the closest to real work I've ever done?"

A spokeswoman for the National Court, who could not be identified because of regulations covering court workers, said slandering the head of state could carry a two year prison sentence.