Twist in model's death after threesome with millionaire couple
Murder investigations are to reopen two years after the death of a Dutch model who fell from a high-rise building in Malaysia following a threesome with a US millionaire and his wife.
Authorities on Wednesday said they would again commence investigations into the death of Ivana Smit, 18, after a local court ruled that there was reason to believe she may have been killed.
In December 2017, the teen was found dead on the balcony of a condominium on the sixth floor of a high-rise residential complex in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur.
She was believed to have fallen to her death from a 20th-floor unit occupied by American-Khazakhstani couple Alexander Amado Johnson, 45, and wife, Luna, 32.
The couple were later arrested and admitted having a threesome with Smit but denied any involvement in her death and were later released without charge.
A court inquest concluded in March that Smit's death was a "misadventure," and that no one was responsible for her death despite evidence of bruises and trauma on her body and DNA traces of the American under her fingernails, according to media reports.
However, a high court last week granted an application by Smit's family to set aside the inquest's findings, ruling that her death was possibly caused by someone else, said police criminal investigation department chief Huzir Mohamed.
"The court ordered the attorney general to instruct the police to reinvestigate the cause of death, and for the case to be reclassified under Section 302 (of the Penal Code)," Chief Huzir said at a press conference broadcast on the police's official Facebook page, referring to Malaysia's laws regarding murder.
Chief Huzir said a team will be formed to reinvestigate the case pending instructions from the attorney general, after which they will record witness statements.
He did not specify who or how many witnesses the police would question.
It is not known whether the couple who hosted her are still in Malaysia.
Police originally had classified the case as "sudden death”.
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