PETALING JAYA, Feb 6 — A private investigator hired by the family of Dutch model Ivana Smit to investigate her death said the case should be classified as murder and suggested a cover up by local authorities, Dutch online newspaper, the NL Times reported.
The private investigator identified as Mark Williams-Thomas revealed this to Belgium’s TV Limburg (TVL) yesterday after his week-long fact finding mission in Kuala Lumpur.
“I have no doubt. From the evidence that I have gathered this week and other information we have through forensics, we can clearly say… in the UK this would be treated as a murder investigations,” he said in the telephone interview broadcast on TVL.
Williams-Thomas told TVL that there were signs of a cover-up over the case and alleged that Malaysia had a “massive” problem with corruption.
“There were very few people whom we talked to here who would not say that there was something suspicious to it,” he said.
“It was certainly not a tragic accident.”
Smit’s naked body was found on December 7 at a condominium in Dang Wangi, where she was believed to have fallen from the 20th floor.
She was believed to have been partying at the home of an American man and his Kazakh wife, who were both charged with drug abuse on December 11 and released the following week on bail.
Her body was kept at a hospital morgue in Kuala Lumpur for 21 days before being repatriated to the Netherlands.
Smit was cremated in her birth town of Roermond in the Netherlands on Dec 30.
Earlier, a pathologist who conducted Ivana’s second post-mortem had said he found bruises on her arms which he said were likely inflicted before her fall.
In his initial findings, Dr Frank van der Goot said the bruises on Ivana’s upper arms indicated that a struggle had likely taken place before she plunged to her death.
Her case was reopened by Dang Wangi police following claims of foul play by her family who were convinced of the autopsy.
Police then interviewed nearly 50 people, but the case is still considered sudden death.
