The late actress and model Anna Nicole Smith. - Reuters

NASSAU, Bahamas (AP):

Bahamas Immigration Minister Shane Gibson is denying that his friendship with Anna Nicole Smith influenced a decision to grant her permanent residency, which was based upon her claim to an island mansion whose ownership is in dispute.

"Absolutely not," Gibson said in a local TV interview, when asked if his friendship with the former Playboy playmate and would-be heiress led him to fast-track her residency application. The interview was broadcast late Monday, hours after photographs of Gibson and Anna Nicole Smith embracing in her bed appeared on the front page of The Tribune of Nassau.

Smith died in Florida last Thursday of unexplained causes, leaving behind a three-way paternity dispute over her 5-month-old daughter - who is potentially worth millions - and questions about the waterfront mansion she claimed was a gift from a South Carolina developer.

An inquest into the death of her 20-year-old son is also pending. Daniel Smith died while visiting his mother and newborn half-sister in a Bahamas hospital last September. The inquest is scheduled to begin on March 27.

Gibson said he and his family became close to Smith after her son died.

"Whenever a stranger is in need I find it very difficult to turn my back," he said.

Opposition Leader Hubert Ingraham called late Monday for police to investigate Gibson's role in the granting of residency to Smith.

Cassius Stuart, leader of the Bahamas Democratic Movement (BDM), said Gibson has "shamed" the Bahamas and called for him to resign.

"He should do the right thing and step down," he told reporters outside Smith's Nassau residence on Monday. The BDM is a small opposition party with no seats in Parliament.

Anna Nicole Smith's companion, Howard K. Stern, said Gibson and his family supported Smith after her son died.

"They came to the house to pray with us on too many occasions to count," Stern said in a statement released by Entertainment Tonight.

On Monday, Ford Shelley, the son-in-law of developer G. Ben Thompson, said he found methadone in her bedroom refrigerator when he went to secure the disputed Bahamas mansion after Smith died.

A private pathologist has said methadone contributed to Daniel Smith's death. Stern, who has lived in the Bahamas mansion with Smith since last summer, was present when Daniel Smith died in his mother's hospital room.

The Bahamas granted permanent residency to Smith based on her claim of ownership of the US$900,000 (euro690,000)house. Smith claimed Thompson gave it to her. But Thompson says it belongs to him, because he loaned Smith money for the gated mansion and she had not paid the debt.

Stern has since reclaimed the mansion and is staying there with Smith's baby, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern.

Stern said in an interview with "Entertainment Tonight" scheduled to air Tuesday that he is the executor of a will drafted for Smith that will leave everything to the girl.

Smith had been waging a battle in court over the estate of her 90-year-old husband, Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, since his death in 1995. A federal court awarded Smith US$474 million (euro366 million), but that was overturned. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled she deserved a new trial.

Dannielynn's birth certificate lists Stern as the father. But two other men have challenged the paternity claim.

A former boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, has filed a lawsuit claiming he is the father.

Prince Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, has said he had a decade-long affair with Smith and may be the father. He said Monday he plans to file a paternity challenge in court and wants a DNA test.