National

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

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 21 Dec, 2023 11:40 AM

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.

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.

Prev Next

MORE National ARTICLES

2nd degree murder charge laid in death of 18 year old Mehakpreet Sethi

A second-degree murder charge has been laid in the death of an 18-year-old outside a Surrey high school last year. Homicide investigators say an 18-year-old man has been charged, but his name won’t be released because he was a youth at the time of the death.

2nd degree murder charge laid in death of 18 year old Mehakpreet Sethi

B.C. unfairly clawed back COVID-19 benefit to thousands during pandemic, says report

Thousands of people in British Columbia saw their $1,000 tax-free COVID-19 benefit unfairly clawed back by the provincial government, says an ombudsperson report. So far, 12,000 people have been told to repay their B.C. Emergency Benefit that the government said was for workers who had been affected by the pandemic, Ombudsperson Jay Chalke said Tuesday.

B.C. unfairly clawed back COVID-19 benefit to thousands during pandemic, says report

Federal government posts $8.2 billion deficit between April and September this year

The federal government recorded a budgetary deficit of $8.2 billion between April and September, $3.9 billion of which was in September. The finance department says in its monthly fiscal monitor that the deficit between April and September compared to a surplus of $1.7 billion during the same period last year.

Federal government posts $8.2 billion deficit between April and September this year

Locked out Rogers Communications workers in B.C. ratify five-year contract

Nearly 300 Rogers Communications workers have voted strongly in favour of a new contract, ending a company lockout that began two weeks ago. The United Steelworkers union Local 1944, Unit 60, says in a statement that its members voted 96 per cent in favour of ratifying the tentative agreement reached last Friday.

Locked out Rogers Communications workers in B.C. ratify five-year contract

'Bank of mom and dad' study: B.C. high earners get housing boost if parents also own

A Statistics Canada study into what it calls the "bank of mom and dad" shows home ownership among young high earners in British Columbia increases more than anywhere else in Canada if their parents are homeowners, too. The study also finds that nationally, people born in the 1990s are twice as likely to own a home if their parents are homeowners, compared to those whose parents are not.

'Bank of mom and dad' study: B.C. high earners get housing boost if parents also own

Port Moody Police arrest knife brandishing teen

Police in Port Moody are investigating after arresting a 15-year-old who allegedly brandished a knife while chasing another teen through a crowd of students at a busy bus stop. Police say it happened yesterday afternoon (in the 13-hundred block of David Avenue) when a fight between two young people escalated into the armed chase.