NASSAU, Bahamas — Photographs of Anna Nicole Smith embracing Immigration Minister Shane Gibson in bed revived a political scandal in her adopted home yesterday, with one politician calling for Gibson's resignation.Also yesterday, Ford Shelley, the son-in-law of the American developer who claims ownership of Smith's Nassau residence, said he found methadone in her bedroom refrigerator when he went to secure the estate following her death last week in Florida.

A pathologist said methadone contributed to the death of Smith's 20-year-old son Daniel in the Bahamas in September. Daniel Smith died while visiting his mother and newborn half-sister in a Bahamas hospital.

Two photographs, published on the front page of The Tribune of Nassau, show Gibson and the former Playboy playmate, both fully clothed, embracing on a bed decorated with pink flowers and a white ribbon. In one of the photos, they look into each other's eyes, their faces only a couple of inches apart.

Gibson, an elected member of Parliament, has already been accused of showing Smith preferential treatment last year by fast-tracking her residency application. With general elections due this spring, many said the photographs, taken in Smith's bedroom, could damage the ruling Progressive Liberal Party.

Opposition leader Hubert Ingraham said he was looking into the matter.

"I'm making some inquiries," Ingraham told The Associated Press.

Cassius Stuart, leader of the Bahamas Democratic Movement, said Gibson has "shamed" the Bahamas and called for him to resign.

"He should do the right thing and step down," he told reporters outside Smith's Nassau residence. The BDM is a small opposition party with no seats in parliament.

Gibson did not return calls seeking comment, but government spokesman Al Dillette dismissed any suggestion of impropriety.

"Minister Gibson is a friend of Anna Nicole, and that's all a matter of public record," he said.

John Marquis, managing editor of The Tribune, declined to identify who provided the photographs. He said he published them because of their potential political impact.

"For the Bahamas, it's not just a salacious story," he said. "It's a story with pretty far-reaching political implications."

Shelley, the son-in-law of developer G. Ben Thompson, said he found the methadone when he went to secure the house on Friday after Smith died.

Both Smith and Thompson claim ownership of the US$900,000 house.

Shelley told The Associated Press by telephone from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, that he notified police about the drugs, saying he felt a responsibility to do so. Shelley said he came to Nassau after hearing that Gibson's mother, who was reportedly caring for Smith's daughter during her trip to Florida, went to the house to remove some of the baby's things.

Smith's companion, Howard K. Stern, has since reclaimed the mansion and is staying there with 5-month-old Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern.

Stern said he is trying to keep Smith's mother, Vergie Arthur, who travelled from the United States and went to the gates of the mansion on Sunday, from seeing Dannielynn. Stern insisted that Smith hated her mother.

"She just despised that woman," Stern said, in a video segment broadcast yesterday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Arthur told "Good Morning America" that she fears for Dannielynn's safety, pointing out that Stern had been present when Daniel Smith died.

"I do have a problem with her being with Howard Stern," Arthur said. "I had a daughter and I had a grandson. He was there when both of them died. Now I only have a granddaughter left, and now he has her, and I'm afraid for her."

Stern's representative scrambled yesterday to keep control over items he said were stolen from the mansion over the weekend before he returned from Florida, including images from a computer taken from the house.

Ron Rale, Stern's spokesman, said anyone who disseminates the items without his prior written consent "will be held liable to the fullest extent of the law."

He said personal photos and videos, a copy of her yet unreleased movie "Illegal Aliens," copies of contracts and Dannielynn's birth certificate were among the stolen items, which have since been recovered by police.

Police referred questions from the media to Assistant Commissioner Reginald Ferguson, who did not answer phone calls.

An inquest into Daniel Smith's death has been scheduled. Stern is listed on a birth certificate as Dannielynn's father. But two other men have challenged the claim.

Since the death in 1995 of her 90-year-old husband, Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, Smith had been waging a court battle over his estate. A federal court awarded Smith US$474 million, but that was later overturned. In May, the US Supreme Court ruled that she deserved another day in court.