A Dutch police officer who investigated the guy on demo for ‘sextorting’ Amanda Todd testified Thursday as prosecutors started introducing a human body of evidence which they claim ties the accused to the harassment of the B.C. teenager.
Appearing by means of a online video link from the Netherlands, Wybren Vandermeer reported he found unique identifiers linking digital devices to the use of a wi-fi world wide web router examined as element of an investigation into Aydin Coban.
Coban has pleaded not responsible to five prison charges — together with little one luring, possession of baby pornography and extortion.
Prosecutors declare he was the man behind 22 fake social media identities used to scare Amanda Todd into providing sexual illustrations or photos of herself to keep an on the net tormentor at bay.
The teenager died by suicide in October 2012. A video clip she designed describing her anguish went viral in the wake of her dying, highlighting the challenge of cyberbullying.
Investigation known as ‘Disclosure’
Vandermeer is an inspector with the Dutch Countrywide Law enforcement drive, but mentioned he prefers to be addressed as “mister.”
He advised the decide and jury he was aspect of an investigation termed ‘Disclosure’ which took him to a house in a rural vacation park about 120 kilometres south of Amsterdam in January 2014.
Carrying a pink plaid shirt, brown hair tied back again in a thick ponytail, Vandermeer gave detailed complex proof about the method via which he was capable to establish that two digital devices — both of those referred to as Admins-Laptop — experienced logged onto the router.
The direct relationship amongst the device and Coban was not defined, but prosecutors reported in their opening statement Monday that the 43-year-outdated was arrested at a three-storey “vacation bungalow” in 2014 where evidence prompt he experienced accessed the net as a result of a router in a neighbouring home.
Vandermeer was the first in what is anticipated to be a series of witnesses from the Netherlands — the country in which Coban was dwelling right before he was extradited to Canada in 2020 to encounter trial.
According to the Crown, Canadian police were not able to determine a suspect when they investigated Amanda Todd’s issues in 2010 and 2011.
But the endeavours of Dutch law enforcement gave the case new existence in 2013 and 2014.
They initially searched Coban’s residence when he was not there and then returned to arrest him, seizing a desktop computer, a laptop computer and difficult drives.
Crown prosecutor Louise Kenworthy said images from those people units ended up examined by an RCMP forensic specialist who observed evidence of a variety of the accounts used to harass Todd regardless of the deletion of a huge total of content.
Kenworthy reported there was proof the Dutch devices experienced at a person position contained video clips that provided the file names ‘Amanda’ and ‘Amanda Todd.’
“The information of those people videos was no more time viewable,” Kenworthy instructed the jury Monday.
“The Crown principle is that Mr. Coban uploaded just one or additional of these videos and subsequently sent hyperlinks to Ms. Todd, her mates and household.”
‘Exactly what sextortion and exploitation is’
Vandermeer’s evidence was sandwiched amongst two times of testimony from a Vancouver Law enforcement Division electronic forensic professional.
Performing Sgt. Robin Shook labored in the counter-exploitation unit prior to his present-day posture in the digital forensic device. He gave the jury specific explanations of world wide web apps ranging from Gmail to YouTube, and the this means of normally employed on the net slang and emojis.
He also spelled out the origins of video clip and chat providers such as Skype and Facebook, as perfectly as providers like Dialogoo, which makes it possible for people to include a chat perform to a site, and motherless.com, a website which he reported largely posts pornography.
Even though some of the evidence was very technological and dry, the testimony speaks to the problem the Crown faces in tying the accused to social media accounts that can be bounced through the levels of the internet to elude identification.
Less than cross-evaluation, just one of Coban’s lawyers exhibited a photograph of the small home where by the router examined by Vandermeer was identified, and suggested it was positioned in a diverse holiday getaway park than the a person in which his client was arrested.
Vandermeer stated he failed to know.
The law firm pointed out the measurement of the trees in the image and the existence of brick partitions, which he proposed would hinder a link to the web from exterior the house.
If Coban was living in a various holiday park, his attorney asked irrespective of whether the elevated distance would make it not likely that his devices could join to the router — both by means of wifi or a tricky cable.
Vandermeer claimed both equally all those variables could be variables.
Coban is not billed in Todd’s dying.
He watched the proceedings from the prisoner’s box, exactly where he sat in a dim colored shirt, separated by glass and a several toes from the bench at the back again of the courtroom exactly where Amanda Todd’s mom, Carol Todd, viewed him.
Outdoors the courtroom Todd claimed she is happy the particulars of her daughter’s ordeal are emerging.
“It is really introduced to mild particularly what sextortion and exploitation is,” she advised the CBC.
“Now we are sharing them and we are providing illustrations of what took place to Amanda and what can transpire to other individuals with on line exploitation. And I can only hope that this is a finding out knowledge and supplies additional recognition all over coffee coolers and meal tables.”
