The nation’s top court on Friday upheld the conviction of a medical doctor for murdering his pregnant wife.

The 33-year-old doctor, surnamed Baek, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for strangling his nine-month pregnant wife to death during an early-morning quarrel over his heavy computer game addiction in January 2011.

Baek initially received the same jail sentence by a district court and an appellate court in Seoul. The Supreme Court, however, overturned the appellate court’s conviction and sent the case back to the Seoul High Court for reconsideration, citing a lack of objective evidence backing the conviction.

The Seoul High Court, however, again overturned the Supreme Court’s decision and sentenced Baek to 20 years in a retrial in last December.

Upholding the Seoul High Court’s ruling, the Supreme Court on Friday finalized Baek’s guilty verdict.

The rare murder case by a doctor drew heavy media attention and required a batch of forensic specialists to prove Baek’s responsibility during a one-year-six-month-long trial.

The quarrel took place when the 29-year-old wife complained about Baek excessively playing computer games, according to court documents. Baek, who was under severe stress at the time due to a state medical doctor qualification test he took a day earlier, committed the murder, the documents showed.

The doctor, however, has claimed that he had reported his wife’s death to the police himself, saying he found her lying dead over a bathtub in the couple’s apartment after he returned home in the evening.

Citing his medical expertise, Baek claimed his wife might have slipped in the bathroom and the extra weight from the pregnancy could have led to her suffocation.

The Supreme Court, however, declined the defendant’s argument, citing various pieces of forensic evidence. (Yonhap News)