Trial scheduled to resume mid-month (April!)
Moglie sparita in crociera, il marito accusato di averla gettata in mare chiusa in una valigia: “Ci ha abbandonati lei” - Il Riformista
Wife disappeared on a cruise, husband accused of throwing her overboard in a suitcase: 'She abandoned us'
They had set off together with the whole family on a peace-building cruise from Genoa in February 2017 along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. But when the ship arrived at the last stop, the mother of that little family was gone. It sounds like the plot of a mystery novel, but instead it is an actual event that happened between 10 and 13 February 2017. The woman's name is Li Yingley, 37 years old of Chinese origin. On trial for that mysterious disappearance is her husband, the German former computer scientist Daniel Belling, 49, who is accused of murder and destruction of a corpse. He allegedly killed his wife and then disposed of her body at sea. But the man, who ended up in prison and was then sent to Dublin under house arrest, where he lived with his young children with his wife and, strangely enough, his mother-in-law, has always rejected all charges, claiming that it was his wife who had decided to abandon her family by taking advantage of one of the stops on that cruise.
According to a report in Il Secolo XIX, the public prosecutor's office recently imposed an obligation for residence on Daniel Belling, who is accused of murder and flew to Ireland after prison. The trial is scheduled to resume mid-month. The defence meanwhile confirms its hypothesis: 'She went back to China.'
RomaToday has reconstructed the mysterious affair. The family boarded the cruise ship in Genoa on 9 February 2017. On the 10th Li was seen in the ship's restaurant at dinnertime with her husband and children. From 8pm onwards, there is no trace of her. However, her absence is only made official upon the ship's arrival in Civitavecchia on 22 February when the ship's staff realise that the woman is no longer on board thanks to the passenger counting system on board.
According to the prosecution, it was the husband who killed the woman and then disposed of the body by putting it in a suitcase, which was then thrown from the ship into the open sea. Suspicion immediately fell on the man because of some of his peculiar behaviours, such as the fact that he did not report his wife's disappearance immediately and on arrival in Civitavecchia he immediately went to the airport to catch the first flight home, without bothering to find out what had happened to his wife or give any explanation. The man always admitted, however, that there had been disagreements between them for some time. That family cruise was supposed to serve as a means of reconciliation. Belling has always rejected the accusations, claiming that his wife took advantage of the cruise to leave him and the children during a stopover and disappear.
But among the dark points of the story is the moment when the man allegedly killed his wife and then disposed of the body in the open sea. Is it possible that the ship's sophisticated video surveillance systems did not record anything? Just as possible that the same video surveillance systems never even caught the woman again on a date after 10 February? Where did Li end up?
Another knot concerns the cabin. When the ship docked in Civitavecchia on 22 February, the investigators requested to search the couple's cabin for clues. To their amazement, they found that the room had already been re-assigned and then cleaned from top to bottom, effectively wiping out any hypothetical evidence or clues that might still be at the hypothetical crime scene.
Added to this is the fact that, according to the investigators, if Belling had killed and put his wife in a suitcase and then disposed of her by throwing her off the cabin balcony, she would have ended up on the 12-metre-wide deck below and not in the sea. Belling, on the other hand, could have walked out of the cabin with the suitcase to one of the corridor doors which, if opened, would have allowed something to be thrown overboard unimpeded, but no camera recorded such a scene. The investigation also revealed a recording of the use of a card in Li Yinglei's name along an Irish motorway on 23 March, i.e. almost two weeks after Belling had been arrested and transferred to Regine Coeli prison. Hence the speculation that the woman may indeed have fled to perhaps return to China. A mystery still unsolved for the time being.
BBM
This report is dated April 4, 2023. Cannot find any confirmation that the trial did resume.
