No govt response to settle suit over Dutch model's death

The family of Ivana Smit has twice tried to settle their negligence lawsuit against the government in connection with the Dutch model’s death seven years ago.

However, the government has not responded to the family’s overtures in the matter of the 18-year-old’s fall from an apartment building in Kuala Lumpur.

The family’s lawyer, Sankara Nair, said they sent the proposed settlement terms to the government in July last year and last Wednesday.

“However, we never received a response from the government,” the lawyer said. Therefore, the Kuala Lumpur High Court will hear the civil suit in full from Oct 14.

Sankara added that Smit’s mother, Christina Carolina Gerarda Johanna Verstappen, is among the seven witnesses that the family will call to testify during the hearing.

On Dec 7, 2017, Smit’s (above) body was discovered on the balcony of a sixth-floor unit of CapSquare Residence in Kuala Lumpur, 14 floors below the 20th-floor unit of the couple Alexander William Johnson and Lunara Almazkyzy.

Since leaving Malaysia in early 2018, cryptocurrency trader Johnson and his wife Almazkyzy have given international media interviews in which they admitted to having had sexual relations with Smit before the incident, but denied being responsible for her death.

The Smit family’s civil suit is directed against the allegedly sloppy and negligent investigation into the model’s death by the authorities.

Sudden death

The four defendants in the lawsuit are the home minister (who is not named), the inspector-general of police (who is not named), investigating officer Faizal Abdullah, and the federal government.

The police initially categorised Smit’s case as sudden death.

Then on March 8, 2019, the Kuala Lumpur Coroner’s Court ruled the model’s death as a misadventure.

However, in November of the same year, the Kuala Lumpur High Court overturned the coroner’s judgment.

The High Court ruled that the possibility of death by homicide and the possibility that the death was caused by “persons known or unknown” to the victim had not been sufficiently investigated.’

Following the High Court’s judgment, the police announced that a new task force would be formed to reopen the investigation into the case.

In November 2020, Verstappen, 58, filed the civil suit to seek general, aggravated and exemplary damages from the police and the government.

The family is seeking a writ of mandamus for the IGP, home minister, and/or the government to issue an arrest warrant and extradite Johnson and Almazkyzy to Malaysia for further questioning and possible prosecution.

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