A SCHOOL dropout who killed a Chinese student because he wanted "to kill a bitch" will spend at least 25 years in jail.

Stavros Papadopoulos, 22, will spend 25 years behind bars for the "thrill murder" of Zhang "Tina" Yu before he becomes eligible to apply for parole.

He repeatedly bashed and sexually assaulted the 26-year-old accounting student before drowning her in the bath in his New Town unit.

Papadopoulos's accomplice, Daniel Jo Williams, also 22, is likely to be released while he is still in his 20s.

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to murder, but a jury found Williams guilty only of Ms Yu's manslaughter and he was sentenced to 10 years in jail, with a non-parole period of six years.

Ms Yu, who was known to her many Hobart friends as "Tina", went to the Observatory nightclub on the night of Wednesday, June 24 last year.

In the early hours of the next morning a friend dropped her off at La Bella pizza in Sandy Bay and it was there Ms Yu met Papadopoulos and Williams.

She got into Williams's car at 2.30am and within three hours she was dead in the boot.

The men had driven her to Papadopoulos's New Town flat where she was subjected to such extreme violence that she eventually asked for her death to be hastened.

She was sitting on the couch when Papadopoulos suddenly slammed a Besser block down on her forehead.

He punched her repeatedly, threw her against walls, dragged her through the unit by her hair and choked her with a sheet and power cords.

At one point Papadopoulos slammed her against a wall and stuck his hand between her legs.

Williams spent most of the time smoking cannabis in the lounge, but when Papadopoulos called out for him to come and watch, he did so.

As Justice David Porter put it, Williams provided an "audience to [Papadopoulos's] depravity".

Williams also took part in the violence, helping to choke Ms Yu.

He also took off her underwear and helped carry her to the bath and watched as Papadopoulos drowned her.

Williams then touched Ms Yu's genitals as she lay dead in the bath, later saying he did so to gain Papadopoulos's approval.

No explanation for Ms Yu's murder was ever offered to the court, other than Papadopoulos's desire for a "thrill".

The men put Ms Yu's things in a wheelie bin and drove her body to the Tyenna River near Westerway. They rolled her into the water and covered her with sticks.

Her body was not found for several days so forensic testing was not able to determine if she had been raped.

In the days following, Papadopoulos and Williams told police they had dropped Ms Yu off at a city hotel.

Williams finally realised detectives were not buying their lies and he took them to Ms Yu's body.

Neither he nor Papadopoulos betrayed any emotion as they were sentenced in the Supreme Court in Hobart yesterday.

Justice Porter said Ms Yu's parents in China would never get over the "senseless brutal murder" of their only daughter.

"They will have to endure this pain and sadness for the rest of their lives, and the loss is acutely exacerbated by the dreadful circumstances of the death," he said.

The judge was sceptical of Papadopoulos's new-found remorse, especially in light of the disparaging, offensive and contemptuous way he spoke of his victim to police.

Justice Porter said the crime was not racially motivated, but had caused much anxiety among overseas students living in Tasmania.

He accepted Williams did not instigate the killing and was fearful of Papadopoulos.

"However, he had ample opportunity ... to escape and raise the alarm," he said.

"Williams showed a complete and incomprehensible lack of empathy for the victim."

Outside court members of Hobart's Chinese community said the sentence for Papadopoulos was fair and just, but Ms Yu's family would be disappointed by Williams's sentence.

"We just still feel very sad and it takes a long time for us to get over this crime, it's very hard to recover," said Chinese student Helen Han.

Another student Sarah Song said the case had made other foreign students reconsider moving to Tasmania for study.