By Yi Whan-woo
The Supreme Court rejected Thursday a lower and high court prison sentence on a medical doctor convicted of strangling his pregnant wife to death.
The court said that the Seoul High Court handed down a 20-year term to the 32-year-old doctor, surnamed Baek, without sufficient evidence.
Justice Lee In-bok rejected the murder conviction and sent the case back to the high court.
“We cannot accept the murder charges as true because there was no objective evidence, although Baek displayed suspicious behavior on the day of his wife’s death,” Lee said.
The top court’s decision is expected to heat up a debate over the truth about the mysterious homicide unless the prosecution presents more convincing evidence to prove its charges against the doctor.
Baek was indicted for murdering his wife, who was nine-months pregnant, during an early morning quarrel at their home in January last year. She was found dead in a bathtub filled with water.
Investigators said she had marks on her neck that were caused by someone who strangled her.
The prosecution claimed that the coupled had frequent arguments. It said that a quarrel took place when the wife complained about Baek’s heavy online gaming habit, adding that he was under severe stress at the time due to a state medical doctor qualification test he took a day earlier.
However, the doctor claimed innocence, arguing that his wife accidentally died of involuntary strangulation due to the pressure of her body weight on her neck after slipping in the tub while taking a bath.
The district and high court accepted the charges against Baek, recognizing the evidence presented by the prosecution.
Overturning the conviction, Justice Lee pointed out that the type of bleeding found in the dead wife could not be seen as evidence to prove that she was a victim of manual strangulation.