KUALA LUMPUR – The family of Ivana Smit says they are satisfied that Malaysia has finally acknowledged the “tremendous errors” in the investigation into the Dutch teenager’s 2017 death, after the high court ordered the government and police to pay RM1.1 million in damages and reopen the case.
“This was never about money,” said Christina Carolina Gerarda Johanna Verstappen and Marcel Smit, Ivana’s mother and father, as well as the rest of the late model’s family in a statement.
“It is far more important that we get recognition from Malaysia that we are not crazy for saying what we were saying for almost eight years.”
Justice Roz Mawar Rozain today found the inspector-general of police, ASP Faizal Abdullah, the home minister, and the government liable for negligence and breach of duty of care.
The court cited serious failures in crime scene management, forensic procedure, and preservation of evidence, and ruled that the mishandling of the case amounted to a dereliction of public duty.
The court also issued a rare writ of mandamus directing authorities to remove ASP Faizal from the reinvestigation team, reopen the probe into Smit’s death, submit quarterly progress reports to the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), and for the AGC to initiate appropriate and successive prosecutorial action.
The defendants were further ordered to pay RM100,000 in legal costs.
Smit, 18, was found dead on the sixth floor of a Kuala Lumpur condominium on December 7, 2017, after allegedly falling from a 20th floor unit occupied by an American couple. Her family consistently disputed police conclusions and pushed for an independent inquiry. In 2019, a judicial review concluded that her death had been caused by “a known or unknown person”.
Plaintiff’s counsel Datuk Sankara Nair described the ruling as a milestone for accountability in cases of suspicious death.
“The court has rightly and fearlessly confronted the negligence, misfeasance, malfeasance, and non-feasance in the handling of this case,” he said.
He urged the AGC not to appeal and to uphold the court’s decision in the public interest.
“We won’t get Ivana back,” the family added, “but at least we have the satisfaction that a new investigation was ordered and the monsters responsible cannot rest easy.”
The AGC has not yet indicated whether it will appeal. – July 29, 2025