Dutch court rejects bid by Amanda Todd's tormentor to scrap Canadian sentence
Aydin Coban was serving time in the Netherlands for separate offences when he was given 13 years in B.C.
The Dutch Supreme Court has rejected online extortionist Aydin Coban's bid to scrap his Canadian sentence for tormenting B.C. teenager Amanda Todd.
Coban is a Dutch national who was extradited, tried and given a 13-year sentence in B.C., before being sent back to the Netherlands where he was already serving time for separate offences.
The Canadian sentence was then converted to six years by Dutch authorities.
The Netherlands Supreme Court has now upheld the converted sentence, saying in a decision posted online Tuesday that Coban's lawyers wanted the term reduced to zero because the maximum sentence had already been imposed in the similar Dutch case against him.
But the court disagreed, saying that those rules in the Dutch criminal code did not apply to the conversion of a sentence imposed in Canada.
Coban was convicted by B.C. Supreme Court in 2022 of the extortion and harassment of Port Coquitlam teenager Todd, who died by suicide at the age of 15.
She took her own life in October 2012 after being blackmailed and harassed online by Coban for years, starting when Todd was 12.
The month before Todd died, she uploaded a nine-minute video using a series of flash cards detailing the abuse she experienced and how it had affected her life. It has since been viewed millions of times.
A Dutch court sentenced him to almost 11 years in prison for similar online offences following a trial in Amsterdam in 2017, where he was accused of the online abuse of 34 girls and five gay men.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, here's where to get help:
- Talk Suicide Canada: 1-833-456-4566 (phone) | 45645 (text between 4 p.m. and midnight ET)
- Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868 (phone), live chat counselling online
- Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention: Find a 24-hour crisis centre
This guide from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health outlines how to talk about suicide with someone you're worried about.
Police also suggest the following to avoid falling victim to sexual extortion:
- Never answer video calls from people you don't know.
- If you mistakenly connect with someone you don't know over live stream, immediately hang up.
- Always answer video calls with the camera turned off until you know the identity of the person calling.
Anyone who finds themselves targeted should immediately stop communicating with the suspected scammer and report it to police. Child exploitation can be reported online at www.cybertip.ca.
Police also say victims should not comply with threats, and should keep records of any correspondence with the perpetrator.