The Dutchman who harassed BC teenager Amanda Todd has returned to the Netherlands

The man convicted of harassing and extorting B.C. teenager Amanda Todd has been returned to the Netherlands, where the prosecutor’s office said a judge would decide whether he would serve part of his 13-year sentence in Canada.

Canada’s Department of Justice said Aydin Coban was returned to his home country on November 24, where he will continue to serve a nearly 11-year sentence imposed by a Dutch court in 2017 for similar crimes involving more than 30 young people.

Coban was extradited to Canada in 2020 to face charges of extortion, harassment and distribution of child pornography related to Todd, who was 15 when she took her own life at her home in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, in October 2012.

Evert Boerstra, press officer for the Dutch prosecution, said a so-called « conversion hearing » will take place now that Coban has been removed, and the court will decide how his Canadian sentence will be converted to Dutch standards.

Boerstra says it will be up to a judge to decide whether Coban will serve the 13-year sentence handed down to him by a B.C. Supreme Court justice last month, after serving his Dutch sentence, which was the maximum that could be imposed.

The press officer says that due to the similarity between the two cases « there is a chance that after the conversion there will be no room to impose a penalty in addition to the Dutch penalty following of the Canadian verdict ».

In an e-mail, Boerstra indicates that the date of this hearing has not yet been announced.

Carol Todd, Amanda’s mother, said she knew at the start of Coban’s nine-week trial in British Columbia last June that any sentence would be converted once she returned to the Netherlands.

But it wasn’t until a Dutch reporter contacted her after Coban’s August sentencing that Todd said she learned he might not serve his sentence in Canada because he was already serving the Dutch maximum sentence for similar crimes committed around the same time. harass his daughter.

Todd said the Dutch journalist spoke to lawyers who indicated that Dutch law also states that when a person is found guilty and sentenced and then found guilty of the same type of offense within the same period, the existing penalty applies.

Todd contacted Crown prosecutors in British Columbia after the Dutch journalist’s story was published and they verified it was the law, she said in a recent interview.

At Coban’s trial in New Westminster, British Columbia, the jury heard he used 22 online aliases to harass Amanda for two years, starting when she was 12.

The lawsuit heard that Coban sent photos to Amanda’s family, friends and school administrators showing her exposing her breasts because she did not comply with his requests to perform sexual « shows » in front of a web camera.

The teenager took her own life weeks after posting a video in which she used flash cards to describe being tormented by an online predator.

Todd said his daughter would have turned 26 this weekend.

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on November 29, 2022.

TO SHARE: