The three main players in the Ibn Ghaldoun school exam theft case have been told they will have to pay €86,000 to the education ministry to cover the cost of exam retakes.

The three were yesterday given jail terms of one month and 170-hour community service sentences for stealing 27 exam papers and selling them to other pupils. Seven other pupils were also given community service for their role in the theft.

‘How they divide the bill between them is up to them,’ a spokesman for the education ministry said. If they do not pay the bill, the ministry will go to court to recover the money, the spokesman said.

Some 17,000 pupils had to retake their French school leaving exam after the paper was stolen from the Rotterdam school and distributed on the internet.

‘This is yours and my tax money and we want it back,’ news agency ANP quoted junior education minister Sander Dekker as saying.