Daniel Belling, a German national with Irish citizenship, has said he is incredulous after being sentenced to 26 years in jail by an Italian court for murdering his wife Xing-Li during a Mediterranean cruise on board MSC Magnifica in 2017. Crew members noticed Xing Li was missing when they did a head count.
Belling maintains his innocence in the case, claiming that his wife would not have left their children and speculating that she may have been killed by someone else.
Belling spent time on remand in an Italian prison before being released and returning to Ireland in 2018, since when he resides in Coolock. His trial eventually began in absentia.
The indictment accused Mr Belling of “causing the death of his wife, who was travelling with him and two young children and in order to achieve impunity for the crime just committed, he disposed of the corpse, hiding it or otherwise causing its destruction.”
Mr Belling has said: “she would not have left the children like this. Why would she not come back? It doesn’t make any sense. I think someone may have killed her. Maybe she knew something. I don’t know, she just said on the cruise ‘I will be back, I need to do some business. She had said that to me earlier before too so I was just like ok. That was the day before. I think she was depressive in her anger management issues so I think it’s something psychological also. I don’t know why she wouldn’t come back. Like, is she in a coma maybe?” “It was upsetting. But not anymore.”
Belling was also convicted in 2022 for using falsified documents to secure a mortgage from Bank of Ireland, but he claimed that his wife was responsible for the fraud.
