The family lawyer of Dutch teen model Ivana Smith, Sébas M. Diekstra, tweeted a CCTV image from the fateful night of her death.
In the black and white footage, the young girl can be seen being carried out of a second bar where she had previously been drinking with an American man and his Kazakh wife after they left their Bangsar location. International media have identified the couple as Alex Johnson and his wife Luna.
Diekstra captioned the picture in Dutch, writing only that they were in possession of footage from the fateful night, and that Ivana was being carried out by “an American man” in the leaked screencap.
The photo was time-stamped at 5:22am, and offers a vague idea of event chronology — and state of mind the teenager was in when the couple decided to take her back to their house for an after-party.
A family member spoke to Free Malaysia Today, telling them that the footage was difficult to watch, and the clips that he had seen showed young Ivana flirting with the man purported to be Johnson, while his wife trailed behind the two.
Exactly what happened that resulted in Smit’s 14-story fall is at the center of the case, with the teen’s family unwilling to accept the hasty conclusion by Malaysian police of “sudden death.”
Earlier this week, the British investigator hired by the family, Mark Williams-Thomas, renowned for his work tackling the Jimmy Saville abuse cases and subsequent winner of the Peabody Award, tweeted his initial thoughts on his findings.
He wrote that her suspicious death, coupled with his findings and the conclusions of Dutch forensics investigators of injuries sustained before her fall, have given him ample evidence that the case should be classified as homicide.
Allegations of corruption were also leveled at organized crime syndicates and police protection rackets operating in the shadows. He elaborated to Belgian media, telling them that “people pay the police in exchange for protection,” though he stopped short of naming any specific individuals.
Ivana Smit’s death on Dec. 7 made international headlines after her naked body was found 14 stories below the apartment of an expat couple that she had been visiting after a night of drinking at a popular rooftop Bangsar bar.
Her unexplained fall from the apartment’s balcony, and the timeline that preceded it — rife with gaps and unanswered questions — occupied the headlines for much of December.
Her family are alleging a less-than-thorough investigation by police, and Williams-Thomas has promised new information regarding the circumstances surrounding her death in the coming weeks.
*Editor’s note: The name of a club mentioned in an earlier version of this story has been removed.
