More topless photos of Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, spilled into public view Monday as Britain's royal family asked a French court to stop further publication of the pictures.

The legal battle raged while the duchess and her husband, Prince William, carried on with an official tour of the South Pacific, including meetings with Solomon Islanders -- some of them topless.

The new photos were published Monday by the Italian gossip magazine Chi, which is owned by the same company that last week published several pictures of a topless Catherine sunbathing in private during a vacation at a private chateau belonging to William's uncle in Provence, in southern France.

The grainy images, shot from a distance, show Catherine on a balcony and appear to be no more revealing than those published last week by the French magazine Closer, the Guardian newspaper reported.

In a related development, Irish Daily Star Editor Michael O'Kane was suspended Monday by Independent Star Limited, publisher of the Daily Star, pending an investigation into the circumstances that led to photographs being republished in that newspaper from the French magazine.

While some have questioned the furor over topless sunbathing, which is a common practice in parts of France and elsewhere, the issue is less about nudity than it is about privacy, royal biographer Christopher Andersen said.

William and his brother, Prince Harry, still blame the media for the 1997 death of their mother, Princess Diana, in a traffic accident as her driver fled paparazzi, Andersen said. French investigators concluded the driver of the car Diana was traveling in lost control while he was intoxicated.

The royal family is concerned about similar invasions, particularly if William and Catherine have a child, Andersen said.

"This is a deterrent. They're drawing a line in the sand," he said.

On Monday morning, the royal family filed a criminal complaint with French prosecutors seeking invasion of privacy charges against the magazine and possibly the photographer, a palace spokeswoman said.

Late Monday in civil court in Paris, lawyers for the royals asked for damages and a court order to prevent the photos from being published again. They also want existing photos taken offline, a palace spokesman said.

Lawyer Aurelien Hamelle denounced the published photos in court Monday calling them an infringement of privacy, CNN affiliates reported.

"It is a scene of married life, intimate, personal, that has nothing to do on a magazine" Hamelle said.

Chi, the Italian magazine, put out its special edition Monday with 26 pages of photos of William and Catherine on vacation.

As editors at Closer did last week, Chi executives defended publishing the photos despite the furor from London.

"It is a story worth publishing in an extraordinary edition because it shows in a natural light the everyday life of a very famous contemporary young couple in love," Editor-in-chief Alfonso Signorini said in a statement.

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

"To see a future royal immortalized in a series of pictures, which are certainly neither morbid nor damaging to her dignity, renders her for sure more likable and less anachronistic and distant from of all of us," Signorini wrote.

A French judge is expected to issue a ruling by 6 a.m. EST Tuesday on the civil complaint, reporters from CNN affiliates ITN and BFM have said.

The criminal case in France involves claims of invasion of privacy against the magazine and possibly the photographer.