A Toronto neurosurgeon who pleaded guilty to the 2016 killing of his physician wife just days before his trial was due to begin was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison with no chance of parole for 14 years.

Mohammed Shamji, 43, entered a guilty plea to the second-degree murder of Elana Fric-Shamji, 40, at a Toronto, Canada, courthouse in April.

Sentencing him Justice John McMahon said the case is yet another tragic instance of domestic homicide that he sees far too often.

The court was told Mohammed Shamji broke his wife's neck and ribs and choked her to death as their three children slept nearby.

McMahon credited the defendant for his last-minute guilty plea, which saved his young daughter from testifying. But he condemned him for the brutal murder.

And Ana Fric, Elana's mother, said justice wasn't done.

'I'm so sorry we don't have the death penalty in this country because Mohammed Shamji deserves death for what he did,' she said.

Mohammed Shamji (left) has pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of his wife, Elana Fric Shamji (right), who was found dead in a suitcase in Vaughan, Ontario

Fric-Shamji (left) worked as a family doctor at the Scarborough and Rouge Hospital in Toronto. Her husband (right) was a neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital

A statement read out in court said Shamji killed his wife, then 40, during an argument. She had filed for divorce two days earlier.

Fric-Shamji claimed she had been a victim of domestic violence during their 12-year marriage.

The neurosurgeon, who has been in custody since his arrest on December 2, 2016, stuffed his wife's body into a suitcase where it was discovered dumped the next day by a passer-by near the Humber River in the southern Ontario city of Vaughan.

She was killed from strangulation and blunt force trauma, according to police.

Shamji was arrested at a coffee shop in Mississauga a day after her body was found.

Speaking outside the courthouse after his guilty plea, Ana Fric, Elana's mother, said: 'Justice will never befall us. The only justice we will ever have is if she will come back — and she will never come back.'

News of the murder and Shamji's complicity was met with shock in the Toronto area at the time, particularly within the medical community.

The Shamjis were highly regarded doctors whose marriage produced three children.

The pair posted pictures on social media suggesting a happy couple. However, Fric-Shamji claimed their marriage was marked by domestic violence

Mohammed Shamji (seen left with his wife) was arrested and charged with first-degree murder

Fric-Shamji worked as a family doctor at the Scarborough and Rouge Hospital in Toronto

Fric-Shamji worked as a family doctor at the Scarborough and Rouge Hospital in Toronto.

Before his arrest, Shamji was a neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital and a faculty member at the University of Toronto.

They both had advanced degrees from Duke University in the US.

Witnesses reported hearing the couple arguing at their home on the night of the killing.

Law enforcement officials alleged that Fric-Shamji was hit with a blunt force object in the couple's garage.

Neighbors told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Elana Fric-Shamji had filed for divorce from her husband and that she was in 'good spirits' in the days leading up to her death because she was 'looking toward her new life'.

The couple's 12-year marriage produced three children. Two were in court to hear their father plead guilty

Police believe Shamji (left) killed his wife (right) in the couple's garage after an argument

At the time of the killing, the couple's children – Yasmin, 12; Faiza, nine; and Marius, three – were placed in the care of her maternal grandparents.

Fric-Shamji's grisly death was a far cry from images the couple presented on their social media accounts, which show a husband and wife enjoying one another's company.

However, sources told the Toronto Sun in 2016 that the marriage was marred by previous incidents in which the police were called to the house.