The media in Suriname have published a photograph showing queen Máxima posing with Ingrid Waldring-Bouterse, the wife of Desi Bouterse, the controversial president of Suriname who has been sentenced to 11 years in jail in the Netherlands for drugs trafficking.

Bouterse was also military dictator of the former Dutch colony for a time and before being elected president was also on trial for his role in killing 15 political opponents in December 1982.

The photograph was taken in New York by Suriname’s ambassador to the UN Henry MacDonald, who placed it on his Facebook page.

Distance

The Dutch state information service, which functions as the royal family’s press spokesman, has distanced itself from the picture.

Even though both women are clearly posing for the picture, the RVD told website Royalty Online the photo was taken unasked and nothing had passed between the two women.

The ambassador said later he was deeply sorry the photograph had been misused.

‘It is unfortunate that my profound passion to promote women and girls in general took such a wrong turn, just by publishing a charming picture of the two most respected and important women in our countries,’ he wrote on Facebook.

Máxima’s father Jorge Zorreguieta was Argentina’s agriculture minister during that country’s military dictatorship.