Canadian Brain Surgeon Killed Wife, Stuffed Body In Suitcase

A Canadian neurosurgeon was jailed for life Thursday for murdering his wife, stuffing her body in a suitcase and throwing it in a river after she tried to leave him.

Mohammed Shamji, 43, had admitted beating and strangling 40-year-old Elana Fric-Shamji -- a family doctor, with whom he had three children -- at their Toronto home in 2016.

He was arrested at a coffee shop the next day when her body was discovered on the banks of Toronto's Humber River.

"I want to talk about domestic violence that (Elana) endured for 12 years before she died," her mother Ana Fric said outside court, "in the hope that other women in similar circumstances will realize that unless they have the courage to leave their partners at an early stage they could suffer the same fate as Elana."

The family's lawyer Jean DeMarco said Shamji's sentencing drew a line under more than two years of "absolute torture -- stressful, anxious filled years."

"They can now finally get on with the healing process," she said.

Police had said that on November 28, 2016, Fric-Shamji filed for divorce from her husband of 12 years. Two days later, he beat her brutally, breaking her neck and several ribs, before choking her to death.

Their 11-year-old daughter heard the assault and came into her parents' room, only to be ordered back to her own bed by her father, according to court documents.

Shamji put his wife's body in a suitcase which he threw into the Humber, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Toronto.