A Belgian teacher has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder of a love rival who fell to her death in a skydive after her parachute was sabotaged.
Els Clottemans, 26, was found guilty yesterday of cutting through key parts of the parachute system of 38-year-old Els Van Doren before the two jumped with their mutual lover, a Dutchman, and another man in November 2006.
The 30-year sentence means, under Belgian law, that Clottemans will serve a minimum of ten years in jail.
Prosecutor Patrick Boyen had earlier called for a life sentence, saying there were no mitigating circumstances.
Defence lawyer Katrien Van der Straeten said Clottemans' youth and clean criminal record should lessen the penalty, as well as the fact that she had lost her father at the age of two.
'Do not close the door fully, but give her a ray of hope,' she said.
Clottemans chose not to speak at the sentencing.
Van Doren, married with two children, smashed into a back garden from 4,500m (15,000ft) because both her main and reserve chutes failed to open in the jump, which was recorded by a camera on her helmet.
Prosecutors said Clottemans sabotaged the chutes the weekend before the jump, to remove her rival and to have Dutchman Marcel Somers for herself.
Interest in the case in Belgium has been so great that a live television feed was laid on in a larger room in the courthouse in Tongeren, a town in the east of the country.
