Wife killer given 16 years in jail

A Sydney man who beat and stabbed his wife of 28 years to death after she asked for a divorce has been sentenced to at least 16 years in prison.

Dragi Maglovski was found guilty of murdering his wife Rosa Maglovski, 48, on October 8, 2011 in their Hurstville home in Sydney's south as their adult son Daniel lay oblivious upstairs.

In sentencing the 60-year-old in the NSW Supreme Court on Monday, Justice Robert Beech-Jones said Maglovski had stabbed his wife at least 10 times as well as slashing and beating her.

"It was a savage, albeit quick attack," Justice Beech-Jones said.

The court heard the couple, who have two children aged 21 and 26, had been sleeping in separate bedrooms for more than eight months before the attack.

When, on the afternoon of her death, Ms Maglovski told her husband she wanted a divorce, the 60-year-old said she spat in his face saying, "I don't want to live with you anymore, I don't like you".

While the murder was not premeditated, the judge found that Maglovski made a "reasonable decision to kill his wife".

"The offender was simply ill-equipped to deal with the changing nature of their relationship," Justice Beech-Jones said.

The court heard the 60-year-old, who came from a small village in Macedonia, married his wife in that country when she was just 19 and he was 30.

After the pair moved to Australia in 1984, Rosa became increasingly independent and eventually started her own cleaning company.

Prior to the breakdown of his marriage, the judge said Maglovski had led an "exemplary life" and that there was no history of violence in their relationship.

Justice Beech-Jones dismissed defence submissions that Rosa's call for a divorce was a "mitigating circumstance".

"Married women have a right to choose their own destiny," he said.

"The offender has visited misery upon himself.

"I expect as he contemplates what he had and what he has lost he will consider prison a small part of his punishment."

Maglovski was sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison with a non-parole period of 16 years.

Taking into account time already served, his earliest date for release is October 27, 2027.