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Trial begins for U.S. couple accused of killing woman’s mother in Indonesia

Heather Mack of the US waits in a cell before her first hearing trial on January 14, 2015 in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. Heather Mack and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer are accused of murdering Mack's mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, whose body was found stuffed inside a suitcase in the back of a taxi outside a luxury Bali hotel in August 2014. Agung Parameswara/Getty Images

BALI, Indonesia – An Indonesian court has opened the trial of an American couple accused of killing the woman’s mother last year in the resort island of Bali.

The 19-year-old Heather Mack and her boyfriend, the 21-year-old Tommy Schaefer, both from Chicago, were put on separate trials Wednesday at the Denpasar District Court on charges of premeditated murder, which carry a maximum death penalty.

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READ MORE: Police say room disagreement preceded killing of American woman in Bali

They were arrested Aug. 13, a day after the badly beaten body of the 62-year-old Sheila von Wiese-Mack was found in a suitcase inside the trunk of a taxi at the St. Regis Bali Resort.

In their indictments, prosecutors said the couple plotted the kill von Wiese-Mack because she did not endorse their relationship.

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Their lawyers planned to submit defence pleas when the trial resumes next week.

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