Schapelle Corby came close to receiving the death penalty, according to Bali prosecutor

Schapelle Corby is expected to be deported from Bali on Saturday. Photo / File

Convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby, due to return to Australia in the coming days, was only spared the death penalty due to her young age, according to a report.

Prosecutor, Ida Bagus Wiswantan, gave Corby a second chance despite her refusal to admit she was guilty, The Daily Telegraph reports.

"I felt that Corby can still rehabilitate herself so the death sentence is not the punishment. If she got the death sentence she cannot rehabilitate. But I felt that Corby has the chance to fix herself," Wiswantan said.

"For sure it (the death penalty) was discussed."

Instead, she was sentenced to 20 years' in Bali's notorious Kerobokan jail.

Corby is expected to be deported from Bali on Saturday. She was released from prison in 2014 but was unable to leave Indonesia until this month according to parole conditions.

She was convicted of smuggling 4.1kg of cannabis in a boogie board bag in 2004.

Corby's mother, Rosleigh Rose, yesterday revived claims the Australian Federal Police and government withheld proof of her daughter's innocence. Ms Rose is making preparations for her daughter's return but remains convinced she was the victim of a cover-up by Australian authorities.

She said former AFP commissioner Mick Keelty, ex-Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and former Customs Minister Chris Ellison all knew the truth about her daughter's innocence.

"Why don't you ask Mick Keelty and Downer and Ellison why they kept vital information about the boogie board bag and the airport?" Ms Rose asked reporters.

"They know Schapelle was innocent." Lawyers for Corby claimed in 2005 that she'd been unknowingly used as a courier by organised interstate drug smugglers.

Keelty said in March 2005 that an affidavit naming three baggage handlers as those who had planted the drugs was "hearsay" that contained no direct evidence to Corby's case.

Rose has also expressed her concern about how her daughter will adjust to life back in Australia more than a decade after her arrest.

"When she gets here and settles in, we'll just have to make sure we get her out and about," she told the Courier Mail on Thursday.

She said Schapelle had been holed up in her Bali home because of the media attention.

"We'll be trying to get her back into the swing of things so she feels confident." She said no media deal had been made for Corby to discuss her return to Australia, but would not rule out one in the future.

It also hasn't been determined where she will stay once she returns. Her mother lives in Loganlea, south of Brisbane, and sister Mercedes lives on the Gold Coast.

She said Schapelle had "mixed emotions" about returning to Australia. But Ms Rose, who has not seen Schapelle in person for two years, is thrilled she is coming home.

"I'm getting excited now - it's been 12-and-a-half years coming," she said.

- AAP