AMSTERDAM (CN) — Judges in Amsterdam sentenced a man convicted of harassing a 15-year-old girl who later died by suicide to six additional years in prison on Thursday.
The Amsterdam District Court was tasked with bringing Aydin Coban’s Canadian sentence for blackmailing teenager Amanda Todd in line with Dutch guidelines, opting for the legal maximum and exceeding the nearly four and a half years requested by the prosecution.
“That’s much lower than in Canada,” presiding Judge Peter van Kesteren said while reading out the decision.
Coban is already serving an 11-year sentence in the Netherlands for harassing some 30 other young women and gay men.
His lawyer, Robert Malewicz, argued Todd should have been included in the original trial and therefore his client should have gotten no additional time.
“We only have one option, to go to the Supreme Court,” he told reporters after the hearing.
Todd took her own life after Coban manipulated her into showing her breasts on camera. He took screenshots and shared them with her classmates, forcing the teenager to change schools multiple times.
In September 2012, she posted a nine-minute video to YouTube using flashcards to describe her experiences. A month later, she was found dead in her home.
A jury at the British Columbia Supreme Court sentenced Coban to 13 years in prison last year, but his extradition was conditional on serving his sentence in the Netherlands.
During a hearing in July, a three-judge panel in Amsterdam delayed its decision, asking Canadian authorities for more information. Earlier this month the public prosecution service told judges that nothing from their Canadian counterparts changed their sentencing request.
Coban had been scheduled for release in August 2024. With the additional time, he will not be released until 2030.
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