By Canadian Press

Dutch court orders Amanda Todd’s tormentor to serve six years of 13-year B.C. term

Dec 21, 2023 | 10:36 AM

AMSTERDAM — The man who extorted and bullied British Columbia teenager Amanda Todd into suicide has had his 13-year sentence from a Canadian court converted to a six-year prison term in Europe. 

An Amsterdam court handed Aydin Coban the six-year sentence on Thursday, which is the maximum allowed under Dutch law and is longer than the 4 1/2 years prosecutors recommended to the court in July. 

Todd was 15 when she died by suicide at her home in Metro Vancouver in October 2012, weeks after posting a video watched by millions around the world describing being harassed and extorted by an online predator.

Coban was convicted in B.C. Supreme Court last year on charges of child pornography, child luring and criminal harassment after the court heard he blackmailed Todd to expose herself in front of a webcam.

He was already serving an 11-year sentence in the Netherlands after being convicted on similar charges involving the online extortion of 33 young girls and gay men. 

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The sentence imposed Thursday will be served after he completes his current prison time next year.

Robert Malewicz, Coban’s lawyer, had argued his client shouldn’t get any extra time in prison for the Todd case. 

He called the Canadian sentence “exorbitantly high, even by Canadian standards” and said if the court decided to give Coban extra prison time, it should be no more than one year with six months suspended.

Malewicz said after the sentencing that he would appeal the decision to the Dutch Supreme Court.

Coban wasn’t present in Amsterdam District Court for the brief hearing to announce the sentence. He was born in 1978, according to court documents, making him 44 or 45.

He was extradited from the Netherlands to Canada in 2020 to stand trial on charges linked to the Todd case, but only on condition that his sentence would be served in a Dutch prison. 

That meant that prison time imposed by the B.C. court last year had to be converted into a sentence in the Netherlands.

An information sheet by the Netherlands’ Ministry of Justice shows Dutch prisoners who are sent home after being convicted and sentenced abroad can either have prison terms commuted to the length of time they would have received for their crime in the Netherlands, or the term would be continued and served in full.

But a continued sentence “may never exceed the maximum sentence for the relevant crime in the Netherlands,” the document says.

Coban was returned to the Netherlands from Canada in November 2022 following his conviction and sentencing in B.C.

— With files from The Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 21, 2023.

The Canadian Press