A man who bludgeoned his girlfriend's mother to death with a fruit bowl has escaped the death penalty over his role in the grisly Bali suitcase murder.
American Sheila Von Wiese-Mack's body was found stuffed into a suitcase in the boot of a taxi outside a high end hotel in Bali last year.
Tommy Schaeffer, 21, was sentenced to 18 years in jail for the murder, which prosecutors said was premeditated because he deliberately brought the metal fruit bowl into Ms Von Wiese-Mack's room.
His girlfriend, Heather Mack, was sentenced to 10 years' jail for abetting premeditated murder. She had texted Schaeffer asking him to bring a heavy object into her mother's room.
Ten years jail was only two thirds of the sentence requested by prosecutors.
However judges took into account the fact Mack, 19, had given birth one month ago and the baby would need her care.
Outside court, Mack said she felt "emotional".
"Everybody knows I am insane, I'm the wild card," she said. She also said the 18 year sentence was "not fair for Tommy".
Ms Von Wiese-Mack, 62, had opposed the relationship between Schaeffer and Mack.
She had angrily described him as a "thief" when she learned Schaeffer was also staying at the St Regis luxury resort in Nusa Dua in August last year.
The Denpasar district court heard the couple had schemed to kill Ms Von Wiese-Mack, with one plot involving suffocating her with a pillow and another making the death appear like a suicide by the beach.
But the murder implement ended up being a fruit bowl after Ms Von Wiese-Mack screamed Schaeffer was "just a nigger".
The couple stuffed her body into a suitcase with Mack sitting on the suitcase so Schaeffer could close it. They tried to run away after dumping the suitcase in the boot of the taxi.
Judge Made Suweda said Schaeffer's crime was sadistic and caused unease in the community.
However, she said, he had been polite during the trial, regretted his actions and had never previously been convicted of a crime.
Lawyers for Schaeffer are considering an appeal to the sentence. They have seven days in which to do so.
Mack tapped her fingers nervously and cried as the judges read out a description of the gruesome murder. A friend held the couple's baby outside court.
