Amanda Todd suspect Aydin Coban writes open letter proclaiming innocence

Aydin Coban, a Dutch citizen who has been charged in the extortion and online harassment of B.C. teenager Amanda Todd, has written an open letter from his jail cell in the Netherlands proclaiming he's the victim of an orchestrated "hate campaign."

"First off, I'm innocent," Coban writes in English in his four-page letter. "I'm not the so-called tormentor of Miss Amanda Todd or of anyone else, for that matter. I've been in jail exactly a year now for things I haven't done."

• the fifth estate: Aydin Coban's open letter
• Dutch man suspected of tormenting Amanda Todd had 75 other victims, Facebook report says
• Dutch police alerted to extortion suspect before Amanda Todd suicide 
• the fifth estate: Stalking Amanda Todd: The Man in the Shadows

Coban, who is awaiting trial and gave the letter to his lawyer to distribute, writes that he has been "branded the monster" behind the crimes against Todd by the international media and its audience.

"They pretend to be the judge, the jury and the executioner while committing character assassination by orchestrating a hate campaign against an individual on a scale rarely seen," he writes.

'So many blatant lies'

Coban writes that because "so many blatant lies" have been sold as the truth, he decided to write an open letter.

In October 2012, Todd, a 15-year-old from Port Coquitlam, B.C., committed suicide after posting a video on YouTube saying she had been blackmailed by an online predator after exposing her breasts on a webcam.

In January 2014, police in the Netherlands arrested Coban in relation to an investigation in that country involving Dutch victims who were also harassed online. He was eventually charged with nine offences, including indecent assault and production and dissemination of child pornography.

Three months later, RCMP announced Coban was also facing five charges in B.C., including extortion, internet luring, criminal harassment and the possession and distribution of child pornography in the Todd case.

Coban has not been convicted of any of the crimes, and it remains unclear if he will ever stand trial in Canada.

Police knew about Coban's alleged activities before arrest

An investigation by Zembla and the fifth estate revealed police knew about Coban's alleged activities long before his arrest.

Coban claims in his letter that a Facebook security report about the case links threatening messages to Todd to the IP address of a router belonging to one of his former neighbours. But Coban writes that the router was easily accessible to anyone in the vicinity.

He also says that at the time the messages were sent to Todd, he was living far from where the router was located.

Coban also writes that Dutch police use "secretive tools" to "infect" computers and suggests that he may have been framed. An independent investigator needs to examine these tools, he writes.

"There is more, but I'll mention those in court. All I wanted to say for now is in this open letter," Coban writes.

In the meantime, he writes, he will continue to spend his days "productively."

"Although, obviously, I'd prefer living my normal life outside, in detention, I've had interesting experiences, met diverse people with colourful life stories, read many books, gave guitar lessons and so forth.

"I've been documenting everything in detail since my arrest on the 13th of January 2014. Should be a good read."