US couple accused of Bali suitcase murder to hear verdicts

An Indonesian court is expected to hand down verdicts in the case of a US couple accused of murdering the teenage girlfriend's mother and stuffing her body into a suitcase on the resort island of Bali. The badly beaten body of Sheila von Wiese Mack, 62, was found in the boot of a taxi outside a five-star hotel in the upmarket Nusa Dua area of Bali last August. Her daughter, 19-year-old Heather Mack, and the daughter's boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, had been staying with her and were arrested in another part of the resort island after fleeing. The couple, who are both from the Chicago area and being tried separately by a three-judge panel, are accused of premeditated murder which carries a maximum penalty of death in Indonesia. Prosecutors have recommended an 18-year sentence for Schaefer, 21, who confessed to the killing at his trial but claimed he was acting in self-defence during a blazing row with von Wiese Mack. Prosecutors have called for a 15-year sentence for Heather Mack, who gave birth to a baby girl last month. She is accused of being an accessory to murder. The indictment says that Mack hid in the bathroom as her mother was killed and the couple then stuffed the body into the suitcase together. She insists on her innocence. Judges do not have to follow prosecutors' sentence recommendations, and could still hand down the death sentence. The accused pair are expected to hear their verdicts separately. The judges will hand down sentences immediately after the verdicts, with the hearings at the court in Bali's provincial capital Denpasar expected to start at 0600 GMT. Mack's baby girl, Stella, is staying with her in Bali's notorious Kerobokan jail, where prisoners live in cramped, unsanitary conditions and drug abuse is widespread. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune newspaper in February, Mack said that she was "petrified" and revealed that she was sharing a cell with 10 other women. "I loved my mom with all my heart and miss her every day," she said.