A Bahamian Government minister has been forced to resign after a newspaper published photographs of him embracing the late model Anna Nicole Smith in bed.

Although both Smith and Shane Gibson were fully clothed in the photographs, they stoked a fury because it was Mr Gibson, as Immigration Minister, who fast-tracked Smith's application for permanent residency on the Caribbean island chain.

Mr Gibson announced his resignation on state television last night, apologising to the Bahamian people for any embarrassment he may have caused the country.

“I want to apologise to all persons who may in any way have been offended by anything that I have said, done, or perceived to have said or done,” Mr Gibson said. “To the extent that my beloved country has in any way suffered ... I want to apologise to the Bahamian people as a whole."

Smith, Playboy magazine's 1993 Playmate of the Year, died on February 8 in a hotel in Hollywood, Florida. Her 42-26-38 body was embalmed at the weekend on the orders of a Florida judge pending the outcome of a legal battle as to where she should be buried - either at her family plot or in the Bahamas.

A separate legal battle is pending over who fathered her baby daughter, Dannielynn, who could potentially inherit a multi-million dollar fortune from the estate of the Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, who died in 1995 at the age of 90 the year after marrying Smith.

The girl's birth certificate lists Howard K. Stern, Smith's companion and lawyer, as the father but Smith's former boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, has gone to court in Florida to pursue DNA testing to prove that he is the father. Prince Frederic von Anhalt, the 74-year-old husband of the actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, has also said that he had a decade-long affair with Smith and will file his own paternity challenge.

Smith based her residency application on her ownership of a waterfront mansion in the Bahamas, but that is being disputed too.

Mr Gibson's resignation came six days after a Bahamian newspaper published two front-page pictures of the minister and the model embracing on a bed decorated with pink flowers and a white ribbon. The newspaper said that the photos were taken in Smith’s bedroom, but it has not identified its source.

Announcing his resignation, Mr Gibson said: “I unconditionally deny that I ever abused my ministerial office by granting Anna Nicole Smith any permit of which she was undeserving or for which she was not qualified under the laws of the Bahamas and long established immigration policies.”

Perry Christie, the Bahamian Prime Minister, said that he accepted Mr Gibson’s resignation.“However sad Shane’s decision to resign may be, I also believe, as does he, that it is the correct course of action for him to take in all of the circumstances,” he said.

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