Prosecutors seek life sentence for doctor accused of killing pregnant wife

SEOUL, Aug. 18 (Yonhap) -- Prosecutors sought on Thursday a life sentence for a South Korean doctor accused of murdering his nine-months-pregnant wife during a quarrel.
The 31-year-old doctor, surnamed Baek, was indicted on charges that he suffocated his 29-year-old pregnant wife while the two were fighting over his heavy computer gaming habit in January. Police found the wife lying dead over a bathtub in the couple's apartment in Seoul.
In a court hearing at the Seoul Western District Court, prosecutors demanded life imprisonment for the husband, saying there is a lot of evidence showing that the fight ended in the murder.
"He deserves severe punishment for killing his wife who loved and cared for him and causing the death of the unborn child," a prosecutor leading the case said.
Baek seems to have committed the crime while having a fight with his wife under heavy mental stress stemming from a medical license test that he took the previous day, the prosecutor said.
Baek reported the incident to police, saying his wife seemed to have had a fatal accident while he was out. But prosecutors believe, based on forensic results, that the direct cause of Park's death was suffocation by human hands.
During the hearing, Baek's lawyers refuted the accusations, saying prosecutors had provided insufficient evidence to prove the husband was behind the death of his pregnant wife.
"Prosecutors must prove that the victim died before the husband was out and the direct cause of death is suffocation by human hands," one of the defense lawyers said.