Webcam extortionist can't be linked to blackmailing social media accounts: lawyer

The social media profiles used to extort 34 underage girls, including Canadian teen Amanda Todd, and five adult men can not be linked to prime suspect Aydin C., his lawyers Robert Malewicz and Chana Crijsen said in the court in Amsterdam on Monday, ANP reports.

On Thursday the Public Prosecutor demanded 10 years and 8 months in prison against the 38-year-old man from Tilburg. He is accused of sexual assault via webcam and extortion of 34 minor girls and 5 homosexual men. He is also charged with production, possession and distribution of child pornography, fraud, identity theft, computer trespassing and drug possession. All in all the Tilburg man is facing 72 charges.

Both C.'s lawyers think that their client should be acquitted, according to the news wire. An analysis of the computer data in this case showed that C. can not be linked to the social media profiles and the physical IP addresses that were used to victimize the girls and men, the lawyers said. Additionally, there were chats with some of the victims while C. was in custody, according to Malewicz.

The lawyers also claim that bugs placed in C.'s home to listen in on his conversations, failed. According to them, there were hours-long gaps in the recordings, which means that some important moments were missed and others were misconstrued or taken out of context. "So a distorted picture was created."

The most famous of C.'s suspected victims is Canadian teen Amanda Todd. The 15-year-old girl committed suicide in 2012 shortly after posting a video on YouTube in which she tells how she was extorted for years. Todd's extortion does not form part of this trial. The Canadian authorities want to try C. themselves. Amanda's mother is attending the trial in the Netherlands.