DEBUNKED

Witness Grilled for ‘Defaming’ Ivana

August 18, 2018

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Counsel for the model’s family says evidence of promiscuity by Ivana cannot be corroborated and should be struck out.

Adam, who parties and drinks, clarified he was never an adherent of the Islamic faith
A UK PR in the process of giving up his Malaysian IC
Painted Smit as an immoral character with his testimony that she:

wanted a threesome with the couple she stayed with – Alex Johnson and Luna Almaz
was on Tinder to look for boys
and Luna kissed and sexually fondled each other in public

There was high tension yesterday at the inquest into Dutch model Ivana Smit’s death last year after a witness who took to the stand was told he had been “defaming” Smit so far in his two-day testimony.

SN Nair, the lawyer conducting a watching brief for the Smits, told the Coroner’s Court here that Mohd Shareza Sadek Mohamed @ Adam, a friend of Smit who has been testifying in the inquest from Aug 16, had wrongfully painted her as promiscuous.

“You said you saw Ivana in funny positions, like in threesomes, being flirtatious and groping people, but this is all hearsay. There is no evidence to support all this.

“You even said Ivana was on Tinder (to look for boys). This is defamatory. Do you have the records of her going on the app, a list of the people she met and so on?

“Show me the account,” Nair said during his examination of Adam earlier today.

“Don’t defame a person who cannot defend herself,” Nair added, at which point Adam, 38, admitted he could not corroborate his testimony and said he was ignorant of Smit’s Tinder dealings.

Today is the sixth day of the eight-day inquest into Smit’s death last year.

Adam is the 11th witness to testify.

Smit’s body was found sprawled in the nude on the sixth-floor balcony on Dec 7 last year at CapSquare Residences, off Jalan Dang Wangi, in Kuala Lumpur.

She is believed to have fallen from a 20th-floor unit.

Police had originally classified the case as sudden death, but it was re-opened after pressure from Smit’s family, who claimed that there were elements of foul play and a cover-up.

The inquest is to determine how Smit had died and whether there is enough evidence to eventually take the case to trial.

In his earlier testimony, Adam had told the court he had personally witnessed Smit last year asking for a threesome from Alex Johnson and Luna Almaz, an American-Kazakh couple she had befriended.

He also gave evidence that Smit was openly intimate with Luna that night at a club, kissing and sexually fondling each other in public, which he said had upset his female guests because of the “overtly sexual nature” of their behaviour.

Nair said Adam should not have painted Smit as an immoral character as Adam himself was legally a Muslim but still partying and drinking.

Adam later clarified he was never an adherent of the Islamic faith, although this is stated in his IC, reminding Nair he was a UK permanent resident and in the process of giving up his Malaysian IC.

Later, Nair said Adam was lying in his testimony so far as a date he provided when he was recounting a series of events earlier was wrong, showing flight details that stated Smit was in Penang on that day with her boyfriend, and not in KL as Adam had claimed.

When Adam reminded Nair that he had previously told the court he was not familiar with the specifics of the dates and times of his recounts but was confident the events he had described were true, Nair said this was bad testimony.

“This is my problem. You recounted this to the deputy public prosecutor (DPP) and the court has accepted this. But now you are saying you are not sure. Did you not say ‘yes’ to the DPP yesterday?” Nair asked.

Adam agreed he had said that.

“It was more of a ‘Yeah?’,” he clarified, adding he had a personal assistant who kept track of his meetings and dates, and the event in question was almost a year ago.

At this point, Nair asked Coroner Mahyon Talib to consider striking off Adam’s testimony from the record in full or in part as the witness was not only maligning his client but what he said was hearsay.

He also said that since the Johnsons were subpoenaed to testify in the court but had failed to turn up this week, Adam’s evidence could not be corroborated.

Mahyon then said she had been making notes of the testimony of each of the witnesses, including Adam’s, and asked Nair to proceed with his examination.

Smit’s remains were repatriated to The Netherlands after the police had closed its initial investigations into the case.