A U.S. judge has ruled unconstitutional a regulation requiring large, graphic warning labels on cigarette packaging.

District Judge Richard Leon said Wednesday the regulation violated the First Amendment right to free speech.

The warnings, which were required to take up about half the package label, included color images of cancer-diseased lungs and a body lying on an autopsy table.

In his ruling, Leon said the images were not designed to “increase consumer awareness of smoking risks” but to “evoke a strong emotional response” against smoking.

He said the government has many other ways to warn people about smoking, without violating the constitution.

The government can appeal the verdict. It has not commented on Wednesday's ruling. U.S. government health officials have said the graphic labels are much more honest about the dangers of smoking than the simple warnings currently printed on all U.S. cigarette packages.

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Doctors say smoking is the number one cause of preventable deaths.

The head of the anti-smoking group Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Matthew Myers, criticized the judge's decision as, in his words, “wrong on the science and wrong on the law.”

A number of tobacco companies had challenged the regulation, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard Tobacco, Liggett Group, and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco.

Four major U.S. tobacco companies are suing the federal government, saying that forcing them to put graphic warning labels on cigarette packages is unconstitutional.

The companies say the new rules violate their right to free speech.

An attorney representing Lorillard Tobacco Co. says the government can engage in all the anti-smoking advocacy it wants in whatever language and pictures it chooses. But he said it cannot force those who lawfully sell tobacco to carry its message.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not commented on the lawsuit.

The FDA announced in June a series of rotating warning labels for cigarette packs, including such graphic pictures as a corpse in his coffin, a pair of diseased lungs, and a mouthful of rotten teeth. The new labels are to start appearing next year.

Government health officials say the new labels are much more honest about the dangers of cigarettes than simple printed warnings.

The wife of a diplomat from the Democratic Republic of Congo who is stationed in Serbia, has been arrested on suspicion of cigarette smuggling.

Esther Pascaline Bombeto was arrested by Romanian police after crossing into Romania from Serbia.

Romanian police said they found at least 18,000 cigarette packages concealed in the car. A police spokesman said Bombeto used a diplomatic passport to avoid customs controls while crossing into Romania once or twice a week. Officials said police had to break the car's windows to conduct the search after Bombeto claimed diplomatic immunity.

Bombeto's husband, Marc Marius Itela Elombola, second counselor of the Republic of Congo's Embassy in Belgrade, has also been charged with smuggling. He is currently in Serbia. Several Romanians are also suspected of belonging to the smuggling ring.