The Malaysian supreme court has reopened the case of Dutch model Ivana Smit, who allegedly fell from the 20th storey of a building in Kuala Lumpur in 2017, citing a bungled police investigation, local media reported.

The court also ordered the Malaysian government and three other parties to pay her family 1.1 million ringgit (€225,000) in compensation.

The 18-year-old model died under suspicious circumstances after accompanying an American couple to their apartment after a drug and alcohol-fuelled night at a club in the Malaysian capital on December 7.

In 2019, a court ruled her death was accidental despite evidence of a struggle. According to a British private detective and a Dutch pathologist, Smit was dead before she fell from the 20th storey balcony. The police later decided the case was one of murder but by then the American couple had been permitted to leave the country.

Smit’s mother started legal action against the Malaysian authorities in 2020 because of what she considered a shoddy police investigation, including not preserving a crime scene and looking after evidence properly. Police ignored third-party findings in the case and rejected expert witness statements.

Lawyer for the family Sébas Diekstra said the verdict meant the original suspects in the case, the people who saw her last, will be investigated again.

The family is “vindicated”, Diekstra said on social media, “after eight years of disbelief, frustration and fighting for justice. But it also means a new phase: one that will lead to the truth about what was done to Ivana and justice.”

Smit’s parents have always maintained their daughter was murdered. According to her father, she had strangulation marks on her throat, and neighbours had heard a loud altercation in the apartment on the morning of her death.

In an interview from 2018, the American couple claimed they were asleep when Smit allegedly fell and that they had a long-standing sexual relationship with Smit. In 2024, the Malaysian authorities asked Interpol to issue a red notice to locate the couple.