World News
Dutch Family Offers $50,000 Reward for Information on Dutch Model’s Fatal Fall
KUALA LUMPUR – The family of Ivana Esther Robert Smit is offering a US$50,000 (RM198,725) reward to anyone who can provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the Dutch model’s death.
Netherlands news portal NL Times reported that Sebas Diekstra, the lawyer representing the family, said that the next of kin found that there was too little progress in the case, which prompted them to take this step.
“Her relatives hope that the amount (of the reward) is large enough to persuade people with useful information, who have hitherto been silent, to come forward,” the lawyer was quoted as saying on Monday (June 4).
Last December, the 19-year-old victim who has dual Dutch and Belgian citizenship fell from the 20th floor of an apartment in Jalan Dang Wangi, KL and landed on a balcony on the sixth floor.
It is believed that Smit was in the apartment with American businessman Alex Johnson, 44, and his Kazakh wife Luna, 31, after spending a night out with them.
In April the American couple that spent the night with Ivana before she died told British newspaper Mail Online that they had a sexual relationship with the Dutch model in the months before her death, including a threesome on the night that she fell.
Malaysian police have classified the case as sudden death pending the results of the post-mortem and pathology tests.
A private investigator hired by Smit’s family to look into her death said the couple said nothing about this to the police and that the case should be classified as murder.
By Janene Pieters
NL Times